“In the event of continuation of the imperialist powers’ policy and the European Union and US unilateral sanctions, Iran reserves its right to respond in kind and stop oil exports and also to impose sanctions on their products,” the Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said at the third ministerial meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Tehran on Wednesday.
He also said the government plans to increase the volume of the country’s oil production to 5.4 million barrels per day in around two years. In order to prevent the sale of petroleum in its unprocessed form, the country plans to turn 50 percent of the output into product and export it to different countries, he added.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the EU imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. The sanctions came into force in the early summer of 2012.
On October 15, the EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on imposing another round of sanctions on Iran.
Late last month, Seyyed Mehdi Mousavinejad, member of Majlis (the Iranian Parliament) Energy Committee said the parliament was studying a motion to oblige the Islamic Republic to reduce its oil exports in retaliation for the European sanctions against the country’s energy sector.
“This motion...will in the first stage, require the government to cut oil exports, and in case of tighter sanctions, [the motion] envisages complete halt of [Iran’s] oil exports,” he said.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
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Iran has warned that it may impose sanctions against the US and the European Union in the event that they keep up their illegal unilateral bans against the Islamic Republic.
News ID 183371
