Iran says will never back down from its share in global oil market

Mohajerani made the remark in a post on her X account on Saturday in reaction to the latest move by the US Treasury Department which imposed sanctions on Iran’s Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad and some vessels that are part of a fleet involved in the Iranian crude oil exports.

“If previous sanctions were effective, there would be no need for new sanctions and updating them,” Mohajerani said.

The export of Iran’s oil cannot be stopped, she added.

She stated several ministries are spearheading a campaign to counter the sanctions, with the Oil Ministry being one of the most important ones.

The fact that the US has hurriedly imposed sanctions on the Iranian oil minister reveals that Washington is concerned about the Oil Ministry’s activities, Mohajerani emphasized.

The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said in a statement on Thursday that it is designating Paknejad.

Paknejad “oversees the export of tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil and has allocated billions of dollars’ worth of oil to Iran’s armed forces for export,” the Treasury added.

OFAC is also designating several entities in multiple jurisdictions, including China and India, for their ownership or operation of vessels that have delivered Iranian oil to China, or lifted Iranian oil from storage in the Chinese city of Dalian.

The sanctions followed the delivery to Iran of a letter US President Donald Trump had written to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

During an interview with Fox News last week, Trump threatened military action against Tehran if it did not engage in talks on a new nuclear deal.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei on Friday strongly condemned new US sanctions against Paknejad as a testament to Washington’s “infringement of the law and hypocrisy.”

Baghaei stressed the new bans refute the repeated claims by American officials about their readiness for negotiations and show the US hostility to the development, progress, and prosperity of the Iranian people.