The US has exempted India, China and some other countries for another six months from tough financial sanctions targeting Iranian oil sales because they have continued to reduce their dependence on Iranian oil.
“I am pleased to announce that, based on additional significant reductions in the volume of their purchases of Iranian crude oil, China, India, the Republic of Korea, Turkey and Taiwan have again qualified for an exception to sanctions...(under) the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012,” secretary of state John Kerry said in a statement on Thursday.
These additional reductions were determined based on an analysis of these economies’ purchasing activity over the previous six months, Kerry said.
These countries would be allowed to keep purchasing reduced amounts of Iranian crude oil for the next 180 days without any penalties.
Other countries
Additionally, Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore and Sri Lanka have also qualified again for the NDAA exception because they no longer purchase crude oil from Iran, he said.
Kerry’s exemption in this regard came soon after the determination made by US President Barack Obama that there is sufficient supply of non-Iranian oil for countries to continue to reduce import of oil from Iran.
“There currently appears to be sufficient supply of non-Iranian oil to permit foreign countries to reduce significantly their purchases of Iranian oil, taking into account current estimates of demand, increased production by countries other than Iran, inventories of crude oil and petroleum products, and available spare production capacity,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
The US has enforced tough sanctions to discourage nations from buying Iranian oil. It accuses that Iran’s nuclear programme is not peaceful, a charge deny by Tehran.
Iran and six major powers reached a historic interim deal in Geneva on November 24 over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
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