Iran to replace dollar with euro in foreign deals    TEHRAN:
Iran announced Monday it has ordered the central bank to use euros for foreign transactions and transform the state's dollar-denominated assets held abroad into the single European currency.

"The government has ordered the central bank to replace the dollar with the euro to limit the problems of the executive organs in commercial transactions," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

"We will also employ this change for Iranian assets in dollars held abroad."

Elham implied that the move would apply to oil revenues from the world's number four crude producer, although it remains to be seen how the market would receive this.

"Foreign income sources and oil revenues will be calculated in euros and we will receive them in euros in order to put an end to our dependence on the dollar," Elham said.