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Iran downplays impacts of new US sanctions on oil industry

A set of new US sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector was shrugged off by officials in Tehran, who have been scrambling to keep the lifeline industry up and running in the face of US pressure.
Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh speaks during the 24th International Oil, Gas, Refining & Petrochemical Exhibition at Tehran Permanent Fairground in Tehran on May 01, 2019. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)        (Photo credit should read ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)

Iran’s Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh downplayed fresh US sanctions that hit his country’s oil industry, saying the new measures were Washington’s “passive reaction” to its failure to zero out Iranian crude exports. Zanganeh, who was himself included in a list of newly blacklisted Iranian officials, promised that the “oil industry will not be hamstrung.”

On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department announced the sanctions on the “key actors” in Iran’s oil sector over their links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a military organization already designated as a terrorist entity by the US government. The treasury accused a series of state oil companies and individuals of involvement in the IRGC’s “destabilizing activities.”

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