The United States intends to tighten pressure on Iran until Tehran fulfills Washington’s demands. This was announced on Monday at a press briefing for journalists by US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. He said that Washington is not planning in early May to extend the regime of exemptions from the oil embargo against the Islamic Republic.

According to him, “the maximum pressure exerted on Iran means the maximum pressure”.

Pompeo accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, apprehending US citizens, sponsoring terrorism and testing ballistic missiles. In turn, the spokeswoman for the White House, Sarah Sanders, said that the new approach to anti-Iran sanctions, without exceptions from them for third countries, is intended to end the "malicious behavior" of the regime in Tehran.

Reduce to zero

Last November, the United States introduced restrictive measures against Iranian oil exports as part of a return to the sanctions policy related to Iran’s nuclear program. However, then for eight buyers of black gold (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece) temporary exceptions to the sanctions were introduced: for half a year until May 2, 2019.

The return to restrictions on the export of Iranian oil was associated with the US withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Action Plan. This “nuclear deal,” which Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Berlin, Paris, and London have concluded with Tehran, envisaged a rejection of restrictive measures against Iran in exchange for the rejection of the development of a nuclear program.

Announced on April 22 by the Trump administration, the abolition of the sanctions exemption regime means a total ban on the export of oil from Iran by the United States. Buyers of Iranian black gold, previously enjoying relief from Washington, are now at risk of facing the threat of sanctions. According to US President Donald Trump, American allies are ready to replace oil supplies from Iran: the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

According to The Washington Post, Taiwan, Greece and Italy have allegedly reduced the import of Iranian oil to zero. However, the remaining countries continue to buy hydrocarbons from the Islamic Republic.

As noted by Reuters, last year, India even increased purchases of Iranian oil by 5% - 479,500 barrels per day in the 2018/19 fiscal year. A year earlier, the volume of purchases amounted to 458,000 barrels per day.

  • Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf
  • Reuters
  • © Raheb Homavandi

According to Bloomberg, China is also increasing purchases of Iranian oil. In February 2019, they increased by 22% - to 1.96 million tons per month.

The volume of purchases of South Korea in March fell by 12% compared with last year, but increased compared to the beginning of this year - 1.2 million tons per month or 284,639 barrels per day.

Crawling

Even before the statements by representatives of the Trump administration, the representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Geng Shuang, stressed that Beijing “will by all means protect the legitimate interests of its companies.”

According to experts, the new measures of sanctions by the United States are beating not only on Tehran, but also on buyers of Iranian oil.

“This will affect not only Iran, but also those countries that import oil,” said Irina Fedorova, senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with RT. - The oil of each country is different in quality. And many countries, the importers of Iranian oil will have to carry out a certain reconstruction of the plants that process this oil. ”

Among consumers of Iranian black gold are not only China, but also American allies, including Turkey.

“US relations with Turkey will only continue to deteriorate against this background,” said Semen Bagdasarov, director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Central Asia, in an interview with RT.

Responding to the actions of the United States, on April 22, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt авavuşoлуlu stated that his country rejects Washington’s unilateral actions. Earlier, Cavusoglu stressed that Ankara not only does not intend to reduce trade interaction with Iran, but plans to create new tools for trade with this country in order to increase bilateral trade threefold - up to $ 30 billion. Turkish, as reported by Hurriyet Daily News, The minister said during a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif.

According to Chavushoglu, the new mechanism may resemble INSTEX or The Instrument In Support Of Trade Exchanges, which France, Germany and the United Kingdom had previously created to trade with Iran, bypassing US sanctions. The main idea - avoiding the calculation in dollars in order not to fall under the American restrictive measures.

  • Mevlut Cavusoglu and Javad Zarif
  • Reuters
  • © Murad Sezer

“There are other ways to circumvent sanctions, namely, something like barter. This is when a dollar is not used when buying Iranian oil, and goods worth the amount of oil delivered to Iran are shipped. Thus, India bought a lot of Iranian oil and will continue to do so, ”said Irina Fedorova in a conversation with RT.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi, commenting on the US decision on oil sanctions, said: Tehran has already made the necessary contacts with its foreign partners and will soon report on its future actions. It is known that today Javad Zarif held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. As the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry informs, the heads of the foreign affairs agencies, among other issues, also discussed the “situation around the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan on the Iranian nuclear program”.

Further pressure

As Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders noted today, the decision to lift exemptions from the Iranian oil embargo "was made after the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was added to the list of foreign terrorist organizations, which demonstrates the US commitment to destroying the Iranian terrorist network. This step has condemned Iran, Russia, Turkey and Syria.

  • Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
  • AFP

Earlier in March 2019, the United States imposed sanctions against a number of companies and citizens of Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, who were accused of having links with the IRGC. On April 1, referring to a statement by a high-ranking employee of the Trump administration, Reuters noted that the US is preparing in May of this year to introduce new sanctions against those areas of the economy that were not previously affected by restrictive measures.

As the American edition of Axios notes, last week at a meeting with representatives of the Iranian diaspora in the US, Pompeo said that Washington is not planning a military invasion of Iran. According to the source of the publication, the Secretary of State said that, in accordance with the interests of the United States, "a Iranian leader should be a group of non-revolutionary-minded leaders."

"The United States aims to completely strangle the Iranian economy," said Simon Bagdasarov.

According to Irina Fyodorova, the prospect of a full oil embargo will seriously affect the position of ordinary people in the country. It is possible that prices will continue to rise against the background of the fall in the local currency, the rial.

In addition to various types of sanctions, according to the expert, "the United States is doing everything to worsen the situation of Iran in the region and exacerbate contradictions in relations with countries that can to some extent resist Tehran." The main candidates for this role are Israel and the Gulf States, led by Saudi Arabia. Strengthening tensions, according to the expert, can also be viewed as a peculiar measure of pressure on Tehran.

In turn, the orientalist Said Gafurov said in a conversation with RT that the US sanctions would be "unpleasant for Iran, but" not lethal. "

“There are a million ways to circumvent sanctions,” the expert explained.

Also, according to him, the United States does not have serious instruments of influence on the policy of the Islamic Republic, and if the power in Iran changes, it is solely for its own internal political reasons unrelated to the pressure of Washington.

“Iran is a free democratic country, where the elections will decide everything,” the political scientist concluded.