Boomerang Effect for West: Iran Warns of Oil Cuts to Europe

Iran’s Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi raised the prospect of more cutoffs in oil sales to the European Union if the bloc failed to show some flexibility toward Iran ahead of a second round of nuclear talks next month.

Qassemi said that while Iran has cut sales to Britain and France, it continues selling crude to “other countries” in the world.

In the last days of 2011, Washington imposed new sanctions on Iran to penalize countries for importing Iranian oil or doing trade with its central bank.

The US extraterritorial laws and pressures forced the EU member states to ratify in their meeting on January 23 and after months of debates to sanction oil imports from Iran and freeze the assets of Iran’s Central Bank within the EU.

The Iranian oil ministry in a statement in late January downplayed the effects of the US and EU’s unilateral oil sanctions against Tehran, and said such embargoes will merely harm the European economies and oil consuming countries.

European sanctions against Iran’s oil exports will affect the world economy and hurt European and non-European countries, the statement said.

Later, Tehran summoned the ambassadors of Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Portugal and the Netherlands to protest at the EU’s unilateral sanctions against Tehran over its peaceful nuclear program, and warned them that it would soon stop oil exports to these countries if they do not reverse their decision.

After the EU’s decision to embargo Iranian oil supplies, Tehran stopped exports first to France and Britain and very recently to Greece and Spain. Following Tehran’s oil sanctions against the three and its warning to other EU members, oil prices started soaring in the world markets.

Qassemi said that if sanctions imposed by the 27-nation bloc were not lifted by the next round of nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers, then “we will surely cut oil to Europe.”

“We are hopeful that they will lift sanctions on Iran’s oil,” said Qassemi. “What we have officially cut is crude export to Britain and France. The oil sale to other countries has continued.”