Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak (L) and Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih.
Heinz-Peter Bader | Reuters
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Tuesday that Iran is not the cause of instability in the Persian Gulf and that sanctions against the country are “unlawful.”
Iran’s oil exports, the government’s main source of revenue, have been hit hard. President Donald Trump reimposed heavy economic penalties last year in response to what his administration calls “malign activity” in the Middle East. In May, his administration ended the granting of waivers to the remaining importers of Iranian oil with the aim of slashing the country’s crude exports to zero.
“As regards restrictions on Iranian exports, we support Iran and we believe that the sanctions are unlawful; they have not been approved by the UN,” Novak told CNBC’s Dan Murphy in Vienna, according to a translation.
The energy minister added that he didn’t think Iran should be considered as the cause of the…
