SHANA - An official with the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum says South Korea had completely stopped purchasing oil from Iran over the course of the past three months.






Kasra Nouri, director of the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum's Public Relations, said, "It is nearly three months that South Korea has stopped buying oil from Iran."

According to Mr. Nouri, South Korea was the first country to completely halt its oil purchases from Iran following Washington's pullout of the nuclear deal Tehran stuck with 6 world powers back in 2015.

Nouri reacted to repeated claims by South Korea officials regarding continuation of interactions of Korean companies with Iran despite US pressure.

India, South Korea and Japan are three major customers of Iranian crude oil in Asia.

Before May, South Korea imported an average of 180,000 b/d from Iran.

South Korea�s new ambassador to Iran, Yu Chang Hwang, said on Saturday Korean companies would continue to work with Iran, despite the US pullout from the nuclear deal.

Yu was speaking in a meeting with Deputy Chairman of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture for International Affairs Mohammad Reza Bakhtiari, Mehr News Agency reported.

�South Korean companies did not cut their trade and business cooperation with Iranian economic enterprises in the sanctions period,� the ambassador said, referring to economic sanctions against Iran before the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was signed in 2015.

The United States has reimposed sanctions on Tehran following US President Donald Trump�s withdrawal from JCPOA.