Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Monday that his country’s oil industry would not succumb to an increase in U.S. sanctions.
“These sanctions are a kind of revenge. There is nothing left for the United States to sanction ... the only thing left is probably our services section, like our staff working at the kitchen,” Reuters reported Zanganeh as having told his ministry’s SHANA news agency.
Zanganeh’s comments came a day after Axios reported that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is coordinating with Israel and the Gulf States to impose new sanctions on Tehran. The report was based on two unnamed Israeli sources.
According to these sources, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Elliott Abrams arrived in Israel on Sunday to discuss the coordinated effort with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and National Security Council head Meir Ben-Shabbat.
The sources told Axios that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to visit Israel on Nov. 18 to discuss increasing pressure on Iran.
The sources also said that that the Trump administration sees the “flood” of sanctions as a way to make it harder for the next administration in Washington, headed by President-Elect Joe Biden, to re-enter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers from which Trump withdrew in 2018.
