TEHRAN - Mohammad Nabi Habibi, secretary general of the Islamic Coalition Party, has called for transparency over terms of Iran’s oil and gas contracts with France’s Total.

“We expect the Judiciary to follow the case immediately and resolutely,” he said after a meeting of the conservative party.

A Paris court fined Total 500,000 euros ($570,000) in December for bribing foreign public officials in a case related to Iranian contracts in 1997.

Hedayatollah Khademi, a member of the Majlis Energy Committee, said on December 24 that a motion has been launched in the parliament to question Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh on the issue.

“There has been economic corruption in oil contracts with Total, Statoil and Crescent, dating back to Mr. Zanganeh’s tenure, and this has been proven in foreign courts,” he said.

Habibi also said that Iran should be vigilant in face of U.S. hostilities, because Washington seeks to harm the country.

However, he noted that all U.S. plans in the Middle East region have failed.

“Humiliating withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Syria shows failure of Washington’s plans in the region in the past 40 years,” the party leader remarked.

On December 19, President Donald Trump announced that U.S. troops had defeated the Daesh terrorists in Syria and he sought to pull some 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria.

NA/PA