European companies can purchase crude from Iran as some of them do not have commercial interest in the United States and do not need to be concerned about US sanctions, the head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations said.
"The US re-imposed sanctions on Iran's oil sector in November and some European companies decided to stop buying Iranian oil due to political reasons," Kamal Kharrazi was quoted as saying by the French daily Le Monde Tuesday, Fars news agency reported.
Italy and Greece stopped their purchases despite the fact that the US had granted them some waivers. This indicates that those countries made a political decision, Kharrazi argued.
“The Europeans have not delivered on pledges mentioned in the nuclear accord — officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — signed in 2015," the former foreign minister said, adding that Europe is wary of trading oil with Tehran as the US struggles to bring down Iranian oil exports to zero.
Washington this month ended all sanction waivers it had initially extended to eight major buyers of Iranian oil.
Last week Iran said it was suspending some of its commitments under the nuclear deal and threatened to resume enriching uranium to a higher level if the remaining signatories to the deal — the EU, Russia, and China — do not fulfill within 60 days their commitments to Iran, including protecting Iranian oil trade from unilateral US sanctions.
The EU and foreign ministers of the UK, France, and Germany, responded on the day after the Iranian ultimatum that “We reject any ultimatums and will assess Iran’s compliance on the basis of Iran’s performance regarding its nuclear-related commitments under the nuclear deal.”
