GENEVA/LONDON- Iran said on Tuesday it had so far been able to sell as much oil as it needs despite U.S. pressure, but urged European countries that oppose the U.S. sanctions to do more to shield Iran.

Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri speaks during a news conference after a meeting with Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, south of Baghdad, February 18, 2015/REUTERS

The United States on Monday restored sanctions targeting Iran’s oil, banking and transport sectors and threatened more action to stop what Washington called its “outlaw” policies – steps that Tehran called economic warfare and vowed to defy.

The measures are part of a wider effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to curb Tehran’s missile and nuclear programs and diminish the Islamic Republic’s influence in the Middle East, notably its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

Trump is targeting Iran’s main source of revenue – its oil exports – as well as its financial sector, essentially making 50 Iranian banks and their subsidiaries off-limits to foreign banks, on pain of losing access to the U.S. financial system.

“The Americans constantly said they would reduce the sale of Iran’s oil to zero but I have to say that, so far, we have been able to sell our required amounts of oil,” Tasnim news agency quoted Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri as saying.

“The Americans, with the help of propaganda, don’t see the realities.”

REUTERS

06/11/2018