Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Feb. 7, 2019 – On Tuesday, Bijan Zanganeh Namdar, the Iranian regime’s oil minister, said in a press conference, “The U.S. has started a heavy war by provoking the [MEK], and its tip is pointed at Iran’s oil industry.”
Zanganeh’s comments come while various Iranian officials have tried to downplay the domestic and international crises that are engulfing the Iranian regime. “Today our nation is more united and more resistant than before and stands up to the U.S. and [Iran's] enemies,” Rouhani claimed in a recent speech, in which he also asserted U.S. sanctions will lead to “nowhere.”
Meanwhile, Rouhani’s own oil minister said, “Current U.S. sanctions have put us in a situation that is more difficult than the eight-year war with Iraq.”
Zanganeh admitted that since the U.S. has withdrawn from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal forged between the Iranian regime and world powers in 2015, European countries are no longer willing to buy oil from Iran. “During the period that the U.S. has exited the JCPOA, with the exception of Turkey, European countries have not purchased oil from Iran. Even Greece and Italy, which had obtained sanctions waivers from the U.S., have not purchased oil from Iran,” Zanganeh said.
Without going into the details, Zanganeh said that his regime is trying to use other means to export its oil. “We know that hundreds of people are watching us to identify the smallest of routes and use them to strike at us,” he said.
Regarding the Iranian regime’s relations with China and Russia, two partners Tehran has banked on in face of the growing international consensus against its nefarious activities, Zanganeh said, “Some say that we are not inclined to work with Russia and China, which is not right. We closed the Phase 11 deal in a way that the Chinese got 30 percent of the deal. Now that Total (French oil giant) has exited the deal, the Chinese will have the lion’s share.” Zanganeh also said that his regime engaged in trade talks with Chinese oil giants CNPC and Sinopec without tenders. “They didn’t continue [the talks],” he said.
Zanganeh also complained that the revenue from oil exports is not returning to the regime and is being withheld in a frozen account outside of Iran.
In July, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that the Iranian regime has used the windfall cash from the JCPOA to fund terrorism and its dictator allies.
In November, as the new sanctions against the Iranian regime came into effect Pompeo stressed that the Iranian regime must be prevented from receiving its oil-sales revenue. Countries that had been exempted from the sanctions will be depositing the funds of their purchases in a special, supervised account which will only be used to import humanitarian goods into Iran.
Shortly after, the U.S. Treasury revealed a network used by the Iranian regime to smuggle and illicitly sell oil. The Treasury subsequently imposed new sanctions on officials and institutions involved in the network.
