TEHRAN -- The Iranian Oil Minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Ali al-Naimi, after holding talks in Riyadh on Wednesday agreed to do whatever is necessary to maintain stability in the oil market.

The meeting was held as part of efforts to prevent the oil price from falling.

Zanganeh arrived in Riyadh with a message from President Mohammad Khatami for the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz on the crude price slide and how to stabilize markets.

The Iranian official's visit to Saudi Arabia came ahead of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's visit to Riyadh on Saturday for talks on the oil market.

President Khatami discussed the oil market with Chavez via telephone on Tuesday. Chavez is due in Tehran next week.

In another development on Wednesday, Hugo Chavez, now in Vienna to discuss oil production share, called on non-OPEC countries to reduce oil production.

Chavez, urged OPEC members to comply with their quotas and said a price war would harm all oil exporters, OPEC and non-OPEC alike.

Still with all these efforts, some of the countries refrain from reducing their oil production under the pressure of the United States.