Iran downplays impact of US sanction threats

Iranian Petroleum Ministry has said that there has been no major change in Iran's production and export of crude oil despite US sanction threats.

Iran has plans to counter US President Donald Trump's threats to stop Iran's oil sales, and "the plans are working successfully", Press TV quoted Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh as saying on Sunday.

The Iranian minister also criticized Trump's pressure on Saudi Arabia to increase its supplies and said such efforts would destabilize oil market, Xinhua news agency reported.

The governing principles in Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would never allow such political pressures to change the directions of the market, he said.

Besides, the anti-Iran efforts by the US President are largely to blame for the high oil prices in international markets, he added.

On Saturday, Zanganeh accused Trump of "interfering" in OPEC affairs, saying that Trump's order to oil producing countries to raise output "is very insulting to the people of these countries and would undermine their national sovereignty and destabilize the oil market."

Iran's petroleum minister said that "political issues should not interfere in the crude market, and supply and demand should determine the final oil price."

"But some political measures and instabilities spark concerns in the oil market and increase its price, including Trump's insulting order to some OPEC members," Zanganeh said.

On June 30, Trump said Saudi Arabia had pledged to increase its oil output by 2 million barrels per day "to compensate for falling output in Venezuela and Iran."

--IANS

pgh/