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Iran
oil payment row: India denies acting under US pressure
Friday December 31, 2010 07:36:34 PM ,
IANS
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New Delhi: Amid a row
over oil payments to Iran, India Friday said efforts are being
made to resolve the issue and denied acting under pressure from
any other country.
"We have seen reports regarding problems with respect to
settlement of current account transactions with Iran under the
Asian Clearing Union mechanism," external affairs ministry
spokesperson Vishnu Prakash aid
"This is a technical issue and the Reserve Bank of India is seized
of the matter," he said.
Efforts are being made to resolve the issue as soon as possible,
the spokesperson said, adding that there was "no question of India
acting under pressure of any country."
"We are working on an alternate settlement mechanism," Petroleum
Secretary S. Sundareshan said Thursday after the Reserve Bank of
India barred firms using ACU to pay for crude and gas imports from
Iran. "Alternate mechanism payments could be in any currency. It
could be yen or (Iran's) local currency," Sundareshan added.
ACU, based in Tehran, is a regional payment arrangement under
which companies settle transactions in either US dollars or euros.
India had imported 21.3 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran in
2009-10.
In a statement, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)
Thursday accused the government of surrendering under the US
pressure over the Iranian oil payment issue.
"The decision of the central government to bar Indian companies
from using the ACU to process payments will directly affect
India's trade with Iran and in particular will affect the import
of gas and crude oil from Iran which constitutes around 16 to 17
per cent of the country's crude oil requirements," the CPI-M
statement said.
"The Americans have been pressurizing India as Iran's largest
trading partner in the ACU to close down this route as they
consider it a barrier in the implementation of the US's
arbitrarily imposed sanctions on all companies doing trade with
Iran," the party said.
"This decision of the government of India is a shameful surrender
to US foreign policy agendas and is against the national
interest," the CPI-M said.
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