Turkish foreign ministerMevlut Cavusoglu on Monday said the US decision to end sanctions waivers on Iran oil imports would not contribute to the regional peace and stability, says Anadolu Agency.
“The US decision to end sanctions waivers on Iran oil imports will not serve regional peace and stability, yet will harm Iranian people,” Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a Twitter post.
“Turkey rejects unilateral sanctions and impositions on how to conduct relations with neighbours,” Cavusoglu added.
The #US decision to end sanctions waivers on #Iran oil imports will not serve regional peace and stability, yet will harm Iranian people. #Turkey rejects unilateral sanctions and impositions on how to conduct relations with neighbors. @StateDept @SecPompeo
— Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu (@MevlutCavusoglu) April 22, 2019
Earlier in the day, China, one of Iran’s biggest oil export markets, also criticized Washington’s decision to tell Beijing to stop buying crude from Tehran or face sanctions.
China opposes Washingtons unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction, said a foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang. Speaking at a daily news briefing, said China’s bilateral cooperation with Iran was in accordance with the law.
China, which relies on imports for about half of its oil, could present the toughest diplomatic challenge in trying to enforce the Trump administrations ambition of driving down Irans oil exports.
According to top European allies quoted by Al-Monitor, this latest step by the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign is viewed as an increasingly undisguised effort to push Iran to default on the nuclear deal — and thus to expand the so far narrow coalition the Trump administration has mustered to isolate it, comprising mostly just the United States, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Israel.
“I think the [US administration’s] goal is to have a worldwide coalition against Iran, and to do that, they push Iran to default” on the nuclear deal, said a European diplomat speaking not for attribution. “Until now it is failing, totally.”
“If regime change is the [US administration’s] policy, I think it will fail as well, because the pressure at some stage … instead of weakening the hard-liners, it will just have … as a result the moderates vanishing,” the diplomat added.
Even some U.S. State Department, Defense and intelligence officials and outside experts warn that the US move could backfire by causing ripple effects in countries like China, Turkey and Iraq.
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there,” says Aaron David Miller, a Mideast expert and vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. “And what is the Trump Administration strategy toward Iran? Even if it’s regime change or forcing Iran to retrench in the region, this recent move will accomplish neither goal. It might ultimately goad Iran to give the Administration a pretext for military action. But how would this change the balance to America’s advantage?”
