ANKARA (Dispatches) -Turkey and Iran are reportedly hoping to establish a bartering system to bypass U.S. sanctions after Washington ended waivers for eight countries importing Iranian oil.
The Trump administration this week said it would no longer exempt any eight countries from sanctions if they continued to buy Iranian oil after May 2.
Turkey said it would not accept sanctions on oil imports from its neighbor, adding that Trump’s sanctions "will not serve regional peace and stability”.
"We do not accept unilateral sanctions and impositions on the issue of how we will establish relations with our neighbors,” said Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Cavusoglu dismissed Pompeo’s suggestion that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates could replace Iranian oil supplies.
"Pushing to buy oil from other countries besides Iran goes too far and violates the regulations of the World Trade Organization,” the minister added.
Cavusoglu said Turkey and Iran could seek alternative mechanisms, such as the Instrument In Support Of Trade Exchanges. The bartering channel established by the European Union to circumvent U.S. sanctions is designed to enable bilateral trade in a bid to reach a trading volume of $30 billion.
Turkey would suffer economically if Iranian oil and gas imports were blocked, said Necdet Pamir of Sigma Insight Turkey.