Senior government ministers from Iran and Iraq have held a meeting in Tehran to discuss arrears on a multi-billion dollar debt Iraq owes to Iran for imports of natural gas in recent years.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and Iraqi Electricity Minister Majid Mahdi Hantoush met in the headquarters of the Iranian Oil Ministry on Saturday to find a solution on the issue, said a report by Oil Ministry�s news service Shana.

�Some 27 billion cubic meters of gas has been exported to Iraq up to now ... but the payment is facing problems and we hope we could reach a solution on the issue,� said Zanganeh after the meeting.

The meeting comes as Iraq is pressing for a restoration of reduced gas supplies from Iran months after the National Iranian Gas Company, a subsidiary of the Iranian Oil Ministry, reduced the flow to Iraq over arrears on previous payments.