Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh said on Monday he had no problem with output cuts by OPEC, but scorned "unilateralism" among some members of the producer group.

"I have no problem with a production cut. The main challenge to OPEC is unilateralism. The members need to discuss and decide together," Zangeneh told reporters.

"It hasn't been OPEC’s norm that two people decide outside OPEC and then the organization approves the decision. This is the biggest threat to OPEC.”

His comments came after Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the weekend that Russia had agreed with Saudi Arabia to extend by six to nine months a deal with OPEC on reducing oil output, Reuters reported.

“If OPEC wants to be alive it should decide inside OPEC not to receive instructions from outside OPEC. We are not here to stamp decisions made outside of the organization,” Zangeneh said.

“We want to live in a peaceful environment, but the US and some other neighbor countries in the Persian Gulf want to put pressure on us. It’s very unfair because we have no difficulty with the international agreement that we have signed, the US has jeopardized the deal and we want all the international power to comply with the agreement that we have signed.”

“Another thing that I should say is that it’s an item of agenda that I will reject in OPEC meeting which is a Charter of Cooperation. I believe it is not the time to discuss matter because inside OPEC we have a lot of difficulty,” and it is a meaningless matter to discuss new cooperation in the meeting.