'Iran and Russia propose oil trade without USD'

Venezuela's president has said that countries including Venezuela, Russia and Iran have proposed the US dollar should be replaced as the currency used for oil trade.

"We've been talking about this in OPEC. Venezuela agrees and there are other countries, such as Iran and Russia that are also on-side with this idea," Chavez told reporters in the central Bolivian region of Cochabamba, Reuters reported.

Iran's Trade Promotion Organization has announced a future plan to completely exclude the US dollar from the country's foreign revenues and reserves.

Since October 2007, Iran has received 85 percent of its oil revenues in currencies other than the US dollar and Tehran is determined to find a substitute for the US dollar for the rest of its 15 percent of oil revenues.

The constant declining value of the dollar and persisting economic crisis in the US has forced many countries to drop the currency in favor of a more stable and valuable one.

Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China, Venezuela, Sudan and Russia have taken steps to replace the US dollar in their foreign exchange reserves.

Earlier in September, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the replacement of the US dollar by the euro in the country's foreign exchange accounts.

Recent reports suggested that the Persian Gulf Arab states have recently started secret talks with Russia, China, Japan and France "to end dollar dealings for oil."

According to the report written by Independent's Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, the proposal was to replace US dollar for crude oil trade by a basket of different currencies over a period of nine years until 2018.