A top Iranian financial official said that Iran has begun transferring foreign hard currency deposits from Europe to Asia in a bid to dodge possible sanctions that might be incurred by its disputed nuclear program, the students' news agency ISNA reported on Friday.

Ebrahim Sheibani, chief of Iran's Central Bank, was quoted by ISNA as saying on Wednesday that Tehran was transferring foreign currency reserves, including those for oil foreign exchanges, to countries financially safer to Iran.

Sheibani's comments were published one day after Iranian Economy Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari dismissed recent reports on Tehran's transfer of assets.

Iran has more than 36 billion U.S. dollars of hard currency reserves in foreign banks, most of them European banks.

The current crisis over the Iranian nuclear issue came after Tehran resumed nuclear fuel research activities on Jan. 10 regardless of the warnings of the European Union and the United States.

Under the call of the European trio of Britain, France and Germany, the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors has decided to hold an emergency conference on Feb. 2 to vote on the European motion that Iran's nuclear file be referred to the UN Security Council.

The European trio said that the referral did not necessarily mean economic sanctions, but it is widely believed that sanctions on Iran were quite possible if Tehran continued to be hardline.

The United States has joined the EU in the referral call, long accusing Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons. But Tehran categorically denied the charge, stressing that its nuclear program is fully peaceful.

Source: Xinhua