With tones of defiance, senior Iranian officials have vowed that Tehran aims to bypass financial sanctions soon to be re-imposed on the Islamic Republic’s oil and banking sectors by the Trump administration.
“We are seeking solutions to sell our oil and transfer its revenues,” Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri told the state-run IRNA news agency on Sunday.
Mr. Jahangiri did not detail what solutions were under consideration but did add that Tehran was “hopeful that the European countries can meet their commitments” in terms of oil and business deals currently underway.
In May, President Donald Trump withdrew from the Obama-era Iranian nuclear deal that had curbed Tehran’s nuclear programs in exchange for lifting international economic sanctions. Earlier this month officials in his administration began reimposing sanctions to block other countries from trading with Iran.
Specifically, U.S. officials have targeted Iran’s precious oil exports and have announced that a wave of oil-related sanctions that had been in place before the 2015 deal was reached will be reimposed beginning November 5.
In a game of extremely high-stakes oil politics, Washington says it seeks to squeeze Tehran’s exports to zero and has argued that global supplies are robust enough to replace lost Iranian output.
Earlier this summer, Mr. Trump ratcheted up pressure on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Saudi Arabia — the world’s largest oil exporter — to boost production.
On Sunday, Iran’s OPEC envoy, Kazem Gharibabadi, countered, lashing out against the U.S. pressure and a Saudi proposal to increase its production to take over Tehran’s OPEC export share.
“No country is allowed to take over the share of other members for production and exports of oil under any circumstance, and the OPEC Ministerial Conference has not issued any license for such actions,” Mr. Gharibabadi was quoted as saying by the oil ministry’s news agency SHANA, during a meeting with OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo.
“Iran believes that OPEC should strongly support its members at this stage and stop the plots of countries trying to politicize this organization,” he added.
Despite pressure from Mr. Trump, Iran and other signatories of the nuclear deal, including Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, have spent the past several months attempting to salvage the agreement.
But tensions continue rising. Last week in Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the Trump administration had established an interagency task force to further crack down on Iran.
“We are committed to a whole-of-government effort to change the Iranian regime’s behavior, and the Iran Action Group will ensure that the Department of State remains closely synchronized with our interagency partners,” Mr. Pompeo told reporters at the State Department.
The group will double down on efforts to curb what it has called Tehran’s appetite for regional destabilization and its “aspiration for nuclear weapons” and support for terrorist activity, senior State Department policy adviser Brian Hook said last week.
The Iran Action Group was announced on the anniversary of the 1953 U.S.-backed coup against Iran’s democratically elected government, however, Mr. Hook dismissed the coincidence.
In May, Mr. Pompeo outlined what many Washington policy analysts saw as a clear statement of a U.S. desire for regime change in Tehran when he vowed to “crush” Iran with economic and military pressure unless it changes its behavior.
• Dan Boylan can be reached at dboylan@washingtontimes.com.
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