Sayeed Muhammad of DOT : Iran has threatened of blocking off the waterway through which oil is shipped as its President Hassan Rouhani reiterated that the US will not be able to stop the country from exporting oil and any move to prevent Iranian crude shipments passing through the Gulf.
The US has imposed sanctions on Iran, with US officials saying they aim to cut Iran’s oil exports to zero in a bid to curb the Islamic Republic’s missile program and regional influence, reports Reuters.
“America should know that we are selling our oil and will continue to sell our oil and they are not able to stop our oil exports,” President Hassan Rouhani said yesterday.
He was delivering a televised speech during a trip to the northern Iranian city of Shahroud.
“If one day they want to prevent the export of Iran’s oil, then no oil will be exported from the Persian Gulf,” he said.
Tensions rose between Iran and the US after US President Donald Trump withdrew from a multilateral nuclear deal in May and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Rouhani said the US would not succeed in cutting Iran’s economic ties with the region and the world.
The same day, his deputy Eshaq Jahangiri also said US sanctions were hitting vulnerable people in Iran.
“When (Americans) say their target is the Iranian government and there won’t be pressure on the sick, the elderly and the weak in society, it’s a lie,” Jahangiri said, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
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