Iran’s Oil Minister, Bijan Zangeneh, said the country is still determined to increase its oil production to as high as 4m b/pd, stressing that Tehran will only negotiate over joining the oil freeze plan when that target has been achieved, Press TV reported.

The oil freeze plan that was raised by Saudi Arabia and other key OPEC and non-OPEC producers, requires the global production of oil to remain at January levels. It is meant to boost the prices that have fallen 65% since peaking in June 2014 due to oversupply. However, a meting held in April in Qatar to agree upon the plan ended with a deal.

According to US News, Zangeneh, explicitly stated: “We can’t cooperate with them to freeze our own output, and in other words impose sanctions on ourselves.”