Iran rejects EU move to re-impose sanctions on tanker firm

Iran has rejected the European Union (EU)’s recent move to put the country’s biggest tanker firm back on its sanctions list, saying the move runs counter to the ongoing talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. “We consider the EU move to re-impose sanctions on the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) as politically-motivated, nonconstructive, against the good will trend and in contravention of the ongoing [nuclear] talks,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said at her weekly press briefing on Wednesday.

She described the EU move as “regrettable,” saying Iran expected the other party to the nuclear talks to refrain from measures that would undermine mutual trust.

On February 12, European Union governments agreed to put Iran's biggest tanker firm back on a list of sanctioned companies.

The EU’s second-highest court last July scrapped sanctions imposed by the 28-nation bloc on the National Iranian Tanker Company for its alleged role in Iran’s nuclear energy program.

The General Court of the EU said that there were no grounds to blacklist the NITC after it contested the designation.

The EU move to put back the Iranian company on its sanctions list comes as Iran and the P5+1 group of countries – Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany – are seeking to reach a high-level political agreement by April 1 and to confirm the full technical details of the accord by July 1.

Since an interim deal was sealed in the Swiss city of Geneva in November 2013, the negotiating sides have missed two self-imposed deadlines to ink a final comprehensive agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program.