TEHRAN, June 29 (Xinhua) -- Iran criticized Saudi Arabia's plan to increase oil production against the agreements by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Press TV reported Friday.
The attempt by Saudi Arabia to raise its oil output would weaken the OPEC which agreed to maintain supplies last week, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, Iran's OPEC governor, was quoted as saying.
The Saudi move is in line with pressures by the United States against the Islamic republic, noted Ardebili.
The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday that it has been pushing countries to stop importing oil from Iran by November.
However, the U.S. efforts to ban Iran's oil exports will be futile as it is not an easy task to block the country's crude from the global market, an Iranian oil official said Wednesday.
Although some European companies, such as Shell and Total, have stopped buying Iranian oil over the past few weeks, Iran is still exporting oil to Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the world, Tasnim news agency cited an unnamed Petroleum Ministry official as saying.
Following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to quit the historic Iran nuclear pact on May 8, Washington vowed to re-impose sanctions against Iran and inflict punishments including secondary sanctions on countries that have business links with the Islamic republic.
Firms doing business in Iran were given up to 180 days to terminate investments, before they risk huge fines.
The U.S. withdrawal from the landmark nuclear deal has been widely criticized, as some of its major European allies have been working to prevent the 2015 deal from falling apart.
