Washington: Notwithstanding difficulties faced by countries like India in reducing oil purchases from Iran, the US has said it will keep talking to them to enforce sanctions despite the landmark nuclear deal with the Islamic state.
“We've been very clear that as we negotiated the first-step agreement and as we negotiate the final agreement...the core architecture of Iran's oil and banking sector sanctions remain in place,” US State Department spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters yesterday.
“We have done a lot of diplomatic hard work - very hard diplomatic, tireless work, with countries like India, Japan, South Korea, others, to put in place these sanctions on Iran's oil,” Harf said.
“We know it's not easy for these countries, but we all have done it because it's in the world's interest to put pressure on Iran to get them to a diplomatic solution to their nuclear programme.”
Harf said the US is “going to keep talking to these countries” about enforcing the sanctions. A landmark deal was reached in Geneva on November 24 between Iran and the P5Ư group—Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany—on Tehran's disputed nuclear programme that the West suspects has military dimensions.
Iran vehemently rejects the charge. The six-month Geneva agreement freezes Iran's nuclear drive in exchange of some sanctions being lifted as a final solution is worked out.
Harf said, “We are going to keep enforcing a majority of the sanctions and we'll keep having these conversations. We ...would actively fight any attempts to use this first-step agreement as a way for people suddenly to somehow try to evade sanctions in any way.”
The US shares Israel's concerns and that is why it believes it is important to get a diplomatic resolution to this problem, she said.
