Iran stops selling oil in U.S. dollars -report

Iran has completely stopped selling any of its oil for U.S. dollars, an Iranian news agency reported on Saturday, citing the oil minister of the world's fourth-largest crude producer.

The ISNA news agency did not give a direct quote from Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari. A senior oil official last month said "nearly all" of Iran's crude oil sales were now being paid for in non-U.S. currencies.

For nearly two years, OPEC's second biggest producer has been reducing its exposure to the dollar, saying the weak U.S. currency is eroding its purchasing power.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, has called the U.S. currency a "worthless piece of paper."

Foes since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran and Washington are also at odds over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme as well as over policy in Iraq.

"In line with the policy of selling crude oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, currently the sale of our country's oil in U.S. dollars has been completely eliminated," ISNA reported after talking with Nozari.

Nozari told ISNA: "In regards to the decrease in the dollar's value and the loss exporters of crude oil have endured from this trend, the dollar is no longer a reliable currency."

"This is why, at the meeting of the heads of states, Iran proposed to OPEC members that a currency (for oil exports) would be determined that would be reliable and would not cause any loss to exporter countries," he said.