Turkey slams US move to end waivers on Iran oil imports

TEHRAN (defapress) – Ankara criticized a decision by US President Donald Trump not to reissue waivers in May allowing importers, including Turkey, to buy Iranian oil without facing US sanctions.

News ID: 76987

Date: 23 April 2019 - 10:05

"The US decision to end sanctions waivers on Iran oil imports will not serve regional peace and stability, yet will harm Iranian people," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu wrote on Twitter after the White House announced the decision, Daily Sabah reported.

"Turkey rejects unilateral sanctions and impositions on how to conduct relations with neighbors," he added.

Later, commenting on US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggesting Saudi Arabia and the UAE as alternatives to Iranian oil, the minister said, "pushing [us] to buy oil from countries other than Iran is going too far."

Following a joint news conference with his Tajik counterpart Sirojiddin Aslov in the Turkish capital Ankara, Cavusoglu said it was ethically "wrong" to suggest them as alternatives as the US has close ties with those countries.

"This violates the regulations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and poses a risk to stability in the region," he added.

The United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates "have agreed to take timely action to assure that global demand is met as all Iranian oil is removed from the market," the White House said in a statement Monday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was to discuss the move at the State Department Monday morning. The decision means sanctions waivers for five nations, including China and India and US treaty allies Turkey, Japan and South Korea, will not be renewed when they expire on May 2.

The waivers had been in place since November when the administration re-imposed sanctions on Iran after Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.

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