"I am not an expert on this. But I think it is obvious and everybody is predicting that if Iran is out of the (global oil) market, it would have serious effects on the market, including on oil prices," Araqchi told Sputnik
Last week, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh made assurances that the US administration can never drive the Islamic Republic’s crude exports down to zero.
On May 8, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after years of negotiations among Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), and announced plans for new sanctions against Tehran.
The White House has also announced plans to get as many countries as possible down to zero Iranian oil imports and launch a campaign of “maximum economic and diplomatic pressure” on Iran.
Elsewhere in the interview, the Iranian official referred to Tehran’s decision on whether or not to join SWIFT and said, "As we know Europeans are also working on SWIFT to see how SWIFT can continue working with Iran, or if a parallel (financial) messaging system is necessary or not … It could go either way — either SWIFT can continue working with Iran, or a parallel messaging system could be established for Iran. This is something that we are still working on”.
Iran has been trying to implement anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) standards set by the FATF for years, but the group says it is not satisfied with the measures.
On June 30, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said Iran had until October to complete reforms that would “bring it into line with global norms or face consequences” that could further deter investors from the country.
“The FATF is disappointed with Iran’s failure to implement its action plan to address its significant AML/CFT deficiencies,” the organization said at the time.