ISFAHAN - President Mahmud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday blamed mounting energy prices on the week dollar and reaffirmed his proposal to create a completely new currency which OPEC countries could use in oil transactions.

“As you know the decrease in the dollar’s value and the increase in energy prices are two sides of the same coin which are being introduced as factors behind the recent instability,” Ahmadinejad told a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ Fund for International Development in the central city of Isfahan.
Oil prices have hit record highs of close to 140 dollars a barrel.
Ahmadinejad’s comments came a week ahead of a meeting of major crude producers in Saudi Arabia to discuss oil prices.
He reiterated that the sliding dollar was the main cause of the world’s economic problems, which has affected “the world economy and in particular the economy of world energy exporters”.
“Thus, I repeat my suggestion made six months ago at the OPEC summit in Riyadh to create a basket of credible currencies which would be the basis for oil transactions, or alternatively, OPEC countries create a new currency for their transactions.”
The wide income gap between oil exporters and importers is “disturbing and unfair”, said the president.
Since about 70% of fuel price rises is linked to fuel taxes, cutting tax is the solution to surging energy prices, he added.
Ahmadinejad said “certain powers” were keeping an artificial oil price to “fund the costs of their wars and occupations and to justify investments to exploit new sources of energy at the bottom of the oceans, at the poles, and elsewhere.”
He expressed support for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s proposal on forming an “OPEC bank which would protect the member states’ foreign exchange and national interests”.
In addition, the president called for launching a new oil stock, supporting poor countries which are the main victim of rising oil prices, and establishing a center for sharing oil production technologies as part of efforts to cut energy prices.