VIENNA (AFP) ― OPEC chief Abdullah El-Badri spoke out against looming new sanctions against cartel member Iran on Wednesday at the start of a two-day oil conference in Vienna.

“I don’t want to see any of my member countries under embargo,” El-Badri told oil representatives and ministers, as the European Union prepares to impose a July 1 oil embargo on Iran over its controversial nuclear drive.

“I am really against this 100 percent,” he added.

“Iran is a founder member, it has a great ability to produce oil”, the OPEC secretary-general also told journalists later. 

“So I hope that this embargo will be lifted somehow, by discussion and by ... peaceful solutions.”

Western countries and Israel believe Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb under cover of its civilian program but Tehran insists its purpose is merely peaceful.

The United States and ally Israel ― the sole if undeclared nuclear weapons state in the Middle East ― have even threatened military strikes against the Islamic Republic if diplomacy fails.

Iran, OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer, is already under four sets of sanctions from the United Nations Security Council.

New talks with the so-called P5+1 powers ― the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France, plus Germany ― are set for June 18-19 in Moscow after previous attempts in Istanbul and Baghdad achieved little.