Iraqi authorities denied on Friday that the country had played any part in Iranian efforts to evade US sanctions on oil exports after Washington last month linked a local businessman to the practice.<\/p>\n
In early July, the US State Department sanctioned six entities and identified four vessels as having “knowingly engaged in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing” of Iranian petroleum products.<\/p>\n
Among the sanctioned entities was a network of companies run by Iraqi businessman Salim Ahmed Said accused of having “profited from smuggling Iranian oil disguised as, or blended with, Iraqi oil”.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the director of Iraq’s state oil marketing company SOMO denied any Iraqi role in such sanctions evasion.<\/p>\n
“There are no smuggling or (petroleum) blending operations at Iraqi ports or in its territorial waters,” Ali Nizar told the official INA press agency.<\/p>\n
“It is totally false to speak of the existence of sites allowing the smuggling of Iraqi oil and mixture with oil from neighbouring countries.”<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, an AFP journalist, at the invitation of authorities, accompanied naval personnel on an operation to inspect the paperwork of oil vessels in territorial waters off southern Iraq.<\/p>\n
Iran has denounced US sanctions on its oil sector, calling a subsequent round of restrictions in late July a “a malicious act aimed at undermining the economic development and welfare of the Iranian people”.<\/p>\n
tgg\/smw\/jsa<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraqi authorities denied on Friday that the country had played any part in Iranian efforts to evade US sanctions on oil exports after Washington last month linked a local businessman to the practice. In early July, the US State Department sanctioned six entities and identified four vessels as having “knowingly engaged in a significant transaction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[94,157,585,1392,144],"class_list":["post-5864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-oil","tag-sanction","tag-us-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}