Iran finalizes bill to ban EU oil exports
Sat Jan 28, 2012 2:24PM GMT
Iranian lawmakers aim to ban all oil exports to European countries in response to the oil ban against Iran.
An Iranian lawmaker says the Majlis (parliament) Energy Committee has finalized a draft bill to stop the country's oil exports to EU member states in reaction to the bloc's recent decision to ban oil imports from Iran.
Nasser Soudani, deputy chairman of the committee, said on Saturday that the double-urgency bill for halting Iran oil exports to Europe had been finalized in four clauses.
“According to one of the main clauses, the Islamic Republic of Iran will halt all oil exports to European countries as long as they continue to ban oil imports from Iran,” he added.
The lawmaker said the bill may undergo further modifications as some Iranian parliamentarians believe that oil exports to EU should be stopped for five years.
“Another clause obliges the government to forbid imports of all goods from countries which have imposed sanctions on our country,” he added.
Soudani announced on January 25 that in reaction to EU sanctions against Iran's oil sector and central bank, Iranian lawmakers were drafting a new law to stop oil supply to European countries.
During their latest meeting in Brussels on January 23, EU foreign ministers reached an agreement to ban oil imports from Iran, freeze the country's central bank's assets within EU, and ban sales of diamonds, gold and other precious metals to Iran.
EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, claimed that the new sanctions aim to bring Iran back to negotiations with P5+1 -- US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany -- over the country's peaceful nuclear program.
The United States, Israel and their European allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program and have used this pretext to impose four rounds of international and a series of unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran has refuted the allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran has a right to use nuclear technology for peaceful use.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/223613.html fwiw
ReplyDeleteIran's Guardian Council has expressed its readiness to endorse a proposed bill submitted by the country's parliament to cut off the Iranian oil exports to Europe in response to the EU's recent sanction on Tehran, Press TV reports.
"We cannot express our view before seeing the parliament's legislation on a possible oil ban [on Europe], however; the Guardian Council will ratify any legislation that could help protect Iran's national interests," spokesman for Iran's Guardian Council Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei told Press TV on Saturday.
The move comes after EU foreign ministers reached an agreement in Brussels on January 23 to impose sanctions on oil imports from Iran as of July 1. The sanctions involve an immediate ban on all new oil contracts with the Islamic Republic and freezing the assets of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) within the EU.
If passed, the legislation will deny the six-month phase that the bloc has considered to find alternative sources to compensate for Iran's crude.
The EU accounted for 18 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the first half of 2011, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), making it Iran's second biggest customer after China.
Earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also said that the sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union on Iran's oil and financial sectors will cause the global oil price to rise by 20-30 percent.