“Iran is ready to resolve the ongoing fuel crisis in the world and make up for the shortages,” declared Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji. To that end, he said, the United States ought to lift onerous sanctions that have targeted the Islamic Republic’s vital oil industry.

Owji made the comments following a virtual meeting of OPEC. His statement referenced fuel shortages, which have hit the United Kingdom particularly hard in recent weeks amid soaring prices and long queues at petrol stations across the country.

The Iranian minister advised Western “decision-makers to learn the lesson” and help with the crisis by lifting “unlawful and unjust” sanctions on Iranian crude.

Iran’s political and ideological frictions with the West have in the past four decades left a massive toll on its oil industry at different intervals. Despite a brief period of respite opened up by the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, the sector felt the deepest pain after the American departure from the agreement in 2018. Exercising his “maximum pressure” policy, then-US President Donald Trump went out of his way to bring the Iranian economy to its knees by imposing hefty penalties on most nations interacting with Iran’s oil industry.