MADRID Deputy Foreign Minister for Euro-American affairs Morteza Sarmadi said Sunday night in the Spanish Island of Las Palmas that bilateral relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba are expanding. He made the remark in a telephone interview with IRNA correspondent here. Sarmadi, who is accompanying first Vice President Hassan Habibi in his tour of three Latin American states, arrived in the island Sunday evening.

Habibi, heading a high ranking political and economic delegation, is scheduled to arrive in Colombia on Monday on the first leg of the tour which will also take him to Venezuela and Cuba. Relations between Iran and the three Latin American countries are at the best possible level, the deputy minister said. Tehran-Caracas relations have promoted since coming to office of the new Venezuelan government, he said adding that Iran-Venezuela-Saudi Arabia trilateral cooperation led to increase in oil prices at international markets.

Reviewing Tehran-Caracas ties at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and coordination among oil producing countries will be top on the agenda of talks between the Iranian delegation and Venezuelan officials, he said. Sarmadi added that the Iranian delegation will discuss expansion of Tehran-Bogota economic, trade, oil and agricultural relations as well as export of Iran's non-oil products to Colombia with Colombian officials.

Tehran-Havana relations have experienced an upward trend since the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, he said.