TEHRAN The U.S. oil services giant Halliburton, headed by recently-designated American Vice President Dick Cheney, has opened a trade section in Tehran, the Persian daily ***** Aftab-e Yazd ***** cited the **** Wall Street Journal **** newspaper as saying.

It said the company which is the biggest American firm in oil services has also contributed to execution of several oil development schemes, already underway in the Islamic Republic.

According to the **** Wall Street Journal, **** the company has opened its office in a high-rise building for trade transactions in the plush northern Tehran, it said, adding the section had been inaugurated a year ago.

**** Wall Street Journal **** said that the company's trade activities could violate the unilateral trade sanctions which Washington has imposed on Tehran.

The U.S. paper quoted a spokesperson of the company as saying that the opening of the office did not fall foul of those sanctions since it was represented by an overseas branch of the Halliburton and that no American national was working at the section.

U.S. companies, buoyed by lucrative gas and oil development opportunities in Iran, are pressing the new George W. Bush administration to lift the economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. According to those laws, the American government could take penal trade or otherwise measures against any foreign entity which invests more than 20 million dollars in Iran's oil and gas projects.

European companies have not heeded those threats and concluded several multi-billion dollar deals with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

Tehran and Washington do not hold any diplomatic ties since the time the students following the Imam's line took over the U.S. Embassy here in 1980.

It was recently reported that the chief executives of the three largest U.S. oil companies had met with Iran's foreign minister over discussing prospects for their operations in Iran.

"There was a broad range of discussions including activities in the two countries and ongoing efforts to improve relations between the two countries," said Conoco spokesman Carlton Adams.

New Secretary of State Colin Powell has said Washington will seek out opportunities to improve ties with Iran, frosty since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

"We have important differences on matters of policy, but these differences need not preclude greater interaction, whether in more normal commerce or increased dialogue," Powell said at his confirmation hearing this month.

OPEC member Iran not only has the world's second largest gas reserves and fifth biggest oil reserves but could also be a crucial transit route for landlocked supplies which are being developed in the Caspian Sea states Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

(IRNA)