Asia Bizz: After American president Barack Obama decided to move forward with the plans for sanctions on countries buying oil from Iran, the Chinese government rejected the decision saying that Washington did not have any right to punish other nations. The South Korean officials said that they will continue to work with the US to reduce the oil imports from Iran.
The official agreed to work with US as the other US allies who depended on the Iranian oil worked to find alternative energy supplies.
On March 30, 2012, Obama announced that he has gone ahead with the potential sanctions, which can affect the US allies with Europe and Asia. The announcement was a part of the deepening campaign to starve Iran of money for its disputed nuclear program. The US allies have claimed that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb, while Ian has denied the claims. China is considered as one of the biggest importers of Iranian oil and the foreign ministries reiterated its opposition to the moves of US.
The ministry, in a brief statement on March 31, 2012, said that the Chinese side always opposes one country unilaterally imposing sanctions against another according to the domestic law. Moreover, it does not even accept the unilateral imposition on the sanctions on a third country. The recent sanctions from the US also aim to isolate the Iran’s central bank, where most of the Iran’s oil purchases are processed from the global economy.
This has also cleared the way for the US to penalise the foreign financial institutions that do oil businesses with Iran by preventing them from having a US based affiliate or doing business here. The recent move has shown Obama’s intention to tighten the pressure on Iran and already the administration has exempted ten European Union countries and Japan from the threat of sanctions as they cut their oil purchases from Iran.
