South Korea Stops Buying Iranian Oil
The customs data shows with the new round of U.S sanctions on Iran in November drawing close, South Korea's Iranian oil import has fallen to zero in September.
According to Reuters, the last time that South Korea stopped buying oil from Iran goes back to September 2012.
South Korea is one of the main customers of Iranian oil in Asia, and it started to decrease its oil import from Iran since July due to the sanctions.
In the past few months, the government of South Korea has been negotiating with the American authorities to get an exemption from the sanctions against Iran. During the previous round of sanctions from 2012 to 2015, Seoul was allowed to continue but decrease its oil import from Iran.
Iran’s oil export has decreased during the last several months. In the first 9 months of this year, South Korea’s oil import from Iran has decreased 49.1 percent since last year.
The United States is pressuring its allies to stop Iran’s oil export completely.
The Islamic Republic claims this will not happen since the market demand is so high.