MP says Iran won’t back down on rights in disputed Arash gas field in Persian Gulf

Mostafa Nakhaei, who chairs the Iranian Parliament’s Energy Committee, said no Iranian official has the right to compromise on the national rights in the Arash gas field.

“The field belongs to the entire nation and country, this generation and the next ones,” he said.

“We have differences [with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait] over the Arash gas field, which we have to resolve through negotiations in a diplomatic framework in the first step. If the negotiations do not reach a conclusion for any reason, we will pursue it in a specific legal framework with the presence of international institutions,” he added.

The comments came days after Saudi Arabia rejected Iran’s partial ownership of the gas field.

Saudi media cited an informed source in the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying that the field, known in al-Durra in Riyadh and Kuwait City, is jointly owned by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait “only, and they alone have full sovereign rights to exploit the wealth in that region.”

The Arash natural gas field is located in the waters of the Persian Gulf off the coast of Kuwait and holds an estimated 20 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves.