Alwaght- Germany’s Minister of State for Foreign affairs urged India to continue buying Iranian oil, despite "irritating" pressure from the US.
According to Sputnik, Niels Annen, who is visiting India, told Indian media "I am not a salesman for Iran but I have an impression that India is willing to continue buying oil from Iran and this will be a very important statement.” Whatever New Delhi decided, it would be a "sovereign decision" he added.
The top German diplomat also described the US drive to pressurize its allies to comply with anti-Iran sanctions as "irritating, to put it mildly".
India is Iran’s top oil client, and it is also one of the countries that are most heavily dependent on oil imports. This means that the consequences of US sanctions on Tehran will spread to India, which already has a problem with too high international oil prices.
India is a strong US ally in Asia, but it has also been building better relations with Tehran, which puts it in a sensitive position. In May, when President Trump announced that the United States would pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, India’s Foreign Minister said that India will continue importing Iranian crude despite US sanctions, adding that that India only honors sanctions imposed by the United Nations, but not ones introduced by individual countries.
