Photo: AFP/GETTY |
January 27, 2012
Iran may cut oil sales to EU before July
"All European countries
that made Iran the target of their sanctions will not be able
to buy even one drop of oil from Iran and oil taps will be
turned off to them so that they will not play with fire again"
The European Union rather than Iran will lose out under
new EU sanctions banning Iranian oil, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
said on Thursday as lawmakers said they might cut supplies
to EU countries ahead of a July 1 deadline.
'It is the West that needs Iran and the Iranian nation
will not lose from the sanctions,' Ahmadinejad said in his
first public comments on the issue since the EU's 27 member
states agreed the ban on Monday. 'There was a time when 90
percent of our trade was with the Europeans. It has now dropped
to 10 percent. We didn't call for this. Cut it (trade) and
let's see who will incur the loss,' he said in excerpts of
a speech broadcast on state radio.
Tehran has said the EU's six-month phase-in for the
ban indicates its difficulties in cutting Iranian oil supplied
as it faces unprecedented economic uncertainties due to a
debt crisis. The EU is Iran's second biggest oil customer
after China.
Parliament will debate on Sunday a bill that would oblige
the government to halt oil exports ahead of the July 1 deadline
the EU set in order to soften the blow to the ailing economies
of Greece, Italy and others to whom Iran is a major supplier.
'All European countries that made Iran the target of their
sanctions will not be able to buy even one drop of oil from
Iran and oil taps will be turned off to them so that they
will not play with fire again,' lawmaker Nasser Soudani told
the semi-official Mehr news agency.
The EU move and new U.S. measures aimed at making it harder
for countries around the world to buy oil from Iran, OPEC's
second biggest exporter, constitute the toughest sanctions
yet aimed at pressuring Tehran to curb its nuclear programme.
They come as Ahmadinejad is struggling to control rising inflation
and a currency crisis which itself was partly caused by the
psychological impact of the new sanctions.
Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani told state television
that in addition to higher bank interest rates announced on
Wednesday, Tehran would enforce a single exchange rate from
Saturday, an attempt to stamp out a black market where dollars
have soared due to fears over the sanctions.
Source: Reuters
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