Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.3/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi threatened on Saturday that the country will halt all its oil exports if the "external pressures" maintain on the Islamic Republic's oil sector.
"We have been trying to negotiate to help the oil sector suffer the least losses, but if pressures and restrictions go on, we will revise the policy to supply oil to the industrial world," ISNA quoted Qasemi as saying.
On October 23, Qasemi was quoted by news agencies at the World Energy Forum in Dubai as saying that Iran had contingency plans to survive without any oil revenue if further sanctions were applied. The sanctions are meant to pressure Iran into suspending its uranium enrichment. Western nations suspect that it is meant to enable Iran to produce nuclear weapons.
"If you continue to add to the sanctions, we cut our oil exports to the world," the minister was quoted as saying. "We are hopeful that this doesn't happen, because citizens will suffer. We don't want to see European and U.S. citizens suffer."
In early 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Iranian Central Bank. The sanctions came into force in early summer 2012.
On October 15, the EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.
Iran's oil crude export has fallen reportedly from 2.3 mbpd in 2011 to above 1 mbpd.
The illegal U.S.-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
