Parliament Finalizes Draft Bill on Cutting Oil Supplies to EU

TEHRAN (FNA)- Members of the Iranian parliament finalized a draft bill on cutting the country's oil exports to the European states in retaliation for the EU's oil ban against Tehran, a senior legislator said on Saturday.

"The bill has 4 articles, including one which states that the Islamic Republic of Iran will cut all oil exports to the European states until they end their oil sanctions against the country," Vice-Chairman of the parliament's Energy Commission Nasser Soudani told FNA.

Elaborating on the other parts of the draft bill, he said another article requires the government to stop imports of goods from those countries which are a party to these sanctions against Iran.

After months of debates, the EU member states eventually reached an agreement in their meeting on January 23 to sanction oil imports from Iran and freeze the assets of Iran's Central Bank within the EU.

Following the decision, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton claimed that the sanctions are aimed at pressuring Iran to return to talks over its nuclear program.

Despite Ashton's claims, Iran has always underlined its preparedness to resume talks with the West but has meantime stressed that it will never accept any precondition for such talks.

The Iranian oil ministry in a statement last Monday downplayed the effects of the US and EU's unilateral oil sanctions against Tehran, and said such embargoes will merely harm the European economies and oil consuming countries.

European sanctions against Iran's oil exports will affect world economy and hurt European and non-European countries, the statement said.

"The hurried decision by EU states to use oil as a political tool will have a negative impact on the world economy and specially on the recovering European economies which are fighting to overcome the global financial crisis," it added.

The statement continued that since just 18 percent of oil produced by Iran is exported to European countries, Islamic Republic can easily replace new markets with the European market.