China, Russia Not to Accompany US in Sanctions against Iran

China has rejected a demand by the United States to cut Iranian oil imports. Beijing, however, agreed not to increase purchases of Iran's crude.
The US Department of the Treasury intends to impose sanctions against Russia and China as well as European countries for importing Iranian oil, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee.
"We intend to enforce sanctions on them (China), on Russia, on Europe and others against Iran oil," Mnuchin said when asked if the US would impose sanctions on China for importing Iranian oil.
Previously, Washington revealed that it was set to impose new sanctions on Iran and urged all of the world's countries, including its allies, not to purchase Iranian oil and to cut any trade ties with the Middle Eastern country, so that its exports eventually drop to zero by November; the states that fail to do so will be blacklisted by the US.
However, in early July, the remaining signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, often called the Iran nuclear deal, declared their support for Iran in the face of the US pull-out. Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China assured Tehran that they will continue buying Iranian crude and maintain trade and investment relations despite the return of US sanctions.
Also, monitoring the Iranian oil tankers' activities after the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal shows that the Chinese have always been after increased crude purchase from Iran in the past few months.
Also, oil experts have referred to the Chinese' interest in excluding dollar from trade with Iran to use yuan instead, saying that this can boost trade contracts between Tehran and Beijing.
Another country named by the US Treasury Department is Russia. Different Russian and Iranian officials have on many occasions said that the two countries have inked the agreement to purchase and sell oil since two years ago in a way that Moscow will pay half of Iran's oil money in euro and supply Tehran with needed goods for the other half.
The policy of selling oil to Russia to bypass the sanctions was implemented by Iran in the past too.
The Americans who are aware of this issue are attempting to coax the Russians into accompanying them against Iran but Moscow has always declared that it will pursue its own policy towards Iran and does not abide by the US sanctions.
Given the fact that most customers of the Iranian oil are among the Asian states, zeroing the country's crude exports seems to be completely impossible.

Source:FNA