China rejects sanctions

China says Iran oil imports legal, won't accept unilateral sanctions

Platts,

21 March, 2012

China's foreign ministry on Wednesday insisted its imports of Iranian oil were legal and indirectly blasted US unilateral sanctions aimed at persuading countries to reduce their oil purchases from the Islamic Republic.

"China legally imports oil from Iran through normal channels in a reasonable and fair manner," state news agency Xinhua reported, citing foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei.

"Beijing imports oil based on the country's economic development needs without violating relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and undermining the third party's and international community's interests," Xinhua said, paraphrasing Hong's remarks.

"China opposes any country implementing unilateral sanctions on the other country according to its domestic law," Hong told a daily press briefing when asked to comment on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement Tuesday that Washington would exempt Japan and 10 European countries from sanctions that would bar from the US financial system banks and other businesses dealing with Iranian banks. 

Clinton said Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom and Japan had sufficiently reduced their crude purchases from Iran. As a result, financial institutions based in those countries will not face sanctions that were passed last December as part of the US National Defense Authorization Act.

The exemption is good for 180 days, after which the countries will have to show further efforts to reduce imports of Iranian crude.

Washington has been trying to persuade Iran's top customers in Asia to reduce their oil purchases from the Islamic Republic, but China and India have given short shrift to the US requests.

Japan was deemed by the State Department to have "significantly reduced" its Iranian volumes. However, the country's imports of Iranian crude had already been on a downtrend that was set to continue.