BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities denied on Friday that the country had played any part in Iranian efforts to evade US sanctions on oil exports after Washington last month linked a local businessman to the practice.
In early July, the US State Department sanctioned six entities and identified four vessels as having “knowingly engaged in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing” of Iranian petroleum products.
Among the sanctioned entities was a network of companies run by Iraqi businessman Salim Ahmed Said accused of having “profited from smuggling Iranian oil disguised as, or blended with, Iraqi oil.”
On Friday, the director of Iraq’s state oil marketing company SOMO denied any Iraqi role in such sanctions evasion.
“There are no smuggling or (petroleum) blending operations at Iraqi ports or in its territorial waters,” Ali Nizar told the official INA press agency.
