Namdar Zanganeh said that “the US has reached an ‘evil maturity’ in tightening the noose on Iran’s economy,” according to Radio Farda.
Iran’s oil minister said that the Islamic Republic found ways to circumvent the US sanctions, Radio Farda reported on Sunday.
According to the report, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told Khane-ye Mellat, the official website of the Iranian Parliament, that although the new sanctions imposed by the Trump administration are different and more challenging to elude than the previous ones, Iran is still succeeding in sidestepping them.
“We have unofficial or unconventional sales, all of which are secret, because if they were made known, America would have immediately blocked them,” Namdar Zanganeh said according to Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
He admitted that in the past month China has stopped buying oil from Tehran.
The minister also said that Greece and Italy, whose waivers to buy oil from Iran were not renewed by the US administration last April, have recently not been responding to his phone calls.
Namdar Zanganeh referred to the new rounds of sanctions as “smart sanctions,” and added that “the US has reached an ‘evil maturity’ in tightening the noose on Iran’s economy.”
In order to avoid embezzlement of profits from the sales on the black market, the minister explained that a new system had been implemented: The system entails seven different Iranian officials, including one from the Oil Ministry, signing and endorsing all transactions.
Namdar Zanganeh did not disclose the volumes of the current oil exports and declared that he would not do so until the sanctions are lifted.
As reported by The Jerusalem Post