Turkish Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Financial Affairs Ali Babacan has rejected the West’s unilateral sanctions against Iran.
The Ankara government does not abide by the US and EU unilateral sanctions against Iran, Babacan said in an interview, IRNA reported on Monday.
He said Turkey, as a member of the United Nations, obeys only the resolutions adopted against Iran which are by the UN Security Council.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
Iran is Turkey’s second biggest gas supplier after Russia. Turkey uses a significant portion of its imported Iranian natural gas to generate electricity.
The unilateral bans by the US and the EU come on top of four rounds of Washington-instigated UN Security Council sanctions against Iran under the same pretext.
Tehran has categorically rejected the allegation, stressing that as a committed member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Moreover, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that the Iranian nuclear energy program has been diverted toward military objectives.
By Press TV
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