India Becomes Iranian Oil's Largest Buyer or Is U.S. Punished

While the West has spared no effort in isolating Iran, India has become the latest "offender" to the United States and Europe. On the 10th, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said after his talks with the visiting European Council’s Van Rompuy that the diplomatic channel is the best way to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue and refused to cooperate with the US-European oil sanctions to curtail economic and trade exchanges with Iran. On the 9th, India also announced that it will send a large-scale trade delegation to Iran in recent weeks. According to Iranian official data, in January 2012, India had surpassed China to become the largest buyer of Iranian oil. The United States "New York Times" said on the 10th, "With the latest US sanctions bill, the Indian approach is likely to attract US punishment."

According to reports, during the 10th meeting, Van Rompuy stated that he hopes that India will use its influence to pressure Iran to return to the negotiating table. "When the United States and Europe isolated Iran, India tried to strengthen its economic and trade relations with Iran." AFP said that Indian Minister of Commerce Kühler announced on the 9th that India will send a delegation to Iran at the end of this month to promote Indian exports to Iran. " This will be a very large delegation."

On the 9th, a number of Western media quoted Iran’s official media data that Iran’s oil exports to India in January reached 550,000 barrels per day, which exceeded Iran’s largest oil buyer, China. The semi-official Iran Fars News Agency commented that "this shows India's neglect of the US-European oil ban." US Dow Jones News Agency stated that India "has bought most of the oil that China rejected." Reuters reported on the 8th that since January this year, the amount of oil imported by China from Iran has been reduced to about 250,000 barrels per day, which is only less than half of the daily oil trade between China and Iran.