US urges allies, China, India to stop oil trade with Iran

The United States is pushing allies to cut oil imports from Iran to zero by November and will call on China and India, the biggest buyers of Iranian oil to do the same, as it prepares to re-impose nuclear sanctions on the Islamic country.
President Trump in May announced to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in spite of the opposition from its European allies which were party to it, and set the November 4 deadline for companies that buy crude from Iran to cut those exports or face US sanctions.
A senior US State department official told reporters at a briefing that Washington was pushing allies to cut the oil imports from Iran to zero and indicated that any waivers were unlikely. He was responding to a question, if any waivers would be granted in the process.
“We view this as one of our top national security priorities. I would be hesitant to say zero waivers ever. I think the predisposition would be no, we’re not granting waivers,” the official said.
A US team comprising State and Treasury officials visited Europe and Asia during the past few weeks to garner support for the US’ Iran strategy with an aim to isolate streams of Iranian funding.
The US team is due to visit more countries in coming weeks, including China and India, and the State Department official stated that they would be asked to completely cut off oil imports and find other supplies.
“Yes, absolutely,” the official said when asked if during the visit to China and India, the US team would ask for zero supplies from Iran. “..We are asking them to go to zero, absolutely yes,” the official said adding that the team would engage the Middle Eastern partners to ensure that the global supply of oil was not adversely affected by these sanctions.
To a question, the official made it clear that any Chinese or Indian companies that will engage with Iran in sectors of the economy that were sanctionable, will be subject to the same sanctions that everybody else’s would be if they do not abide by it.
Responding to a question, the official hoped that foreign companies would respect US sanctions and said that the business was falling out of Iran. On the diplomatic front, the official said that the US allies were aware of the US concern which they share.
“I don’t want to get into the substance of each discussion I’ve had, but for the vast majority of countries they are willing – they are willing to adhere and support our approach to this because they also view it as a threat, and it’s gotten worse in 2015, not better, on the regional activity side,” he added.

APP