European Union Adopts Iran Oil Embargo
The European Union adopted an oil embargo against Iran.
The embargo was approved Monday by the European Union’s 27 foreign ministers, during a meeting in Brussels.
Under the measure, part of sanctions over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, the countries will impose an immediate embargo on new contracts with Iran for crude oil and petroleum products, and existing contracts must end by July 1.
“The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes; Western nations are concerned that Iran is preparing to build nuclear weapons.
The E.U. sanctions come on the heels of new financial sanctions on Iran from the United States. The sanctions in the law signed by President Obama on Dec. 31, target third parties that deal with Iran’s financial and energy sectors; for years the United States has banned dealings by its own citizens with those sectors.
New E.U. sanctions approved Monday also include a freeze on the assets of Iran’s central bank.
The new sanctions were meet with additional threats from Iranian lawmakers to close off the Strait of Hormuz, which would cut off much of the West’s oil supply.
“In case of threat, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is one of Iran’s rights,” senior Iranian lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh said. “So far, Iran has not used this privilege.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
