Iranian Gold Reserves Surpass 340 tons

Iranian Gold Reserves Surpass 340 tons
News number: 9202244456 17:37 | 2013-05-26

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9202244456

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian industrial officials announced that the country’s gold
reserves have considerably increased after last year’s discovery of new gold
mines.

“The volume of Iran’s gold reserves is estimated to be over 340 tons by
now,” Deputy Head of Iran’s Geology Organization for Exploration Affairs
Behrouz Borna said on Saturday.

He noted that there are currently 15 gold mines in Iran and by beginning
extraction of two other mines this year the volume of the country’s gold
reserves will even increase further.

Borna said that Iran ranks 12th in Asia and 42nd in the world in terms of
gold reserves.

Last year, Borna announced the discovery of three new gold mines in Saqqez
city in Kurdistan province (Western Iran).

In November, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Mahmoud Bahmani said
that the country’s gold reserves have reached an unexpected high level which
is sufficient for Iran’s domestic needs for the next 15 years.

“Our Gold reserves were enough to help us at least for 15 years,” Bahmani
told reporters on the sidelines of the Islamabad G8 Summit at the time.

“We believe these reserves are enough for us for the next 15 years, even if
we don’t import foreign gold,” he said.

Bahmani said that Iran does not use its gold reserves as a bartering tool in
exchange for foreign goods, despite sanctions that bar Tehran from using US
dollars and Euros in financial transactions.

Despite Iran’s compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
Washington and its Western allies accuse the country of trying to develop
nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they
have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their
allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is
for peaceful purposes only.

Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the
unilateral western embargos for turning down West’s calls to give up its
right of uranium enrichment.

Political observers believe that the United States has remained at
loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of
Tehran’s nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential
to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world
countries.