Large tankers loading at Kharg Island Terminal, offshore in the Persian Gulf. As of 2012, the terminal has handled about 98 percent of Iran’s crude exports. Photo: National Iranian Oil Company via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Iran will not submit to US pressure and will “use every possible way” to export its oil, Iranian Energy Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said on Sunday, reported Reuters.

“We will use every possible way to export our oil and we will not succumb to America’s pressure because exporting oil is Iran’s legitimate right,” Zangeneh said in a statement on the website of the Iranian Petroleum Ministry, SHANA.

Iran’s crude exports have dropped more than 80 percent since the United States reimposed sanctions last November, according to the report. The increasing sanctions on Iran have scared away foreign investors and banks. Iran has the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves.

“China’s CNPC has totally pulled out of the South Pars Phase 11 development and Iran’s Petropars company will carry out the job,” SHANA quoted Zangeneh as saying.

“We want to be friends with all regional countries … they must not regard us as their enemy … Our mutual enemy is outside the Middle East.”

Zangeneh’s comment signified that his country would like better ties with the Gulf states. He added, “We have no dispute with Saudi Arabia … I have no problem to meet with Saudi Arabia’s oil minister.”