Tokyo: United States(US) has asked Japan to freeze plans to develop oil fields in Iran as part of an international effort to prevent the Middle Eastern country from developing nuclear weapons, a news report said.
High ranking US officials, including US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph, conveyed the request that Japan "at least suspend development of the Azadegan oil field," the Sankei newspaper reported on Thursday citing unidentified American officials in Washington.
The US side said that the Japanese government's backing of the oil field project would become an "obstacle" to halting Teheran's suspected attempt to develop nuclear weapons, the report said.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack denied the report, saying Zoellick and Joseph had not raised the issue on Thursday.
McCormack said that in the past US had raised its concerns with Japan about investment in Iran petroleum sector.
"We have made it consistently clear to Japan as well as to other countries that such investment runs into trouble with US law and policy and we asked them to take a look at it," he said.
But it is not an issue that Zoellick and Joseph brought up in their meetings, McCormack said.
Japan, a top US ally which also relies on Iran for much of its oil imports, wants to play a mediating role in resolving the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme.
But the resource-poor country views the oil project as way to secure energy sources, and has little interest in jeopardising its oil trade with Iran.
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