After the United States pulled out of the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed and added to sanctions last year, the Trump administration granted waivers to eight countries who were already established buyers to continue buying specified amounts of Iranian oil for 180 days. Now, however, a senior Iranian energy official in Tehran says that these countries are not making use of the waivers and are instead complying fully with the strict zero-oil sanctions. According to Iran’s deputy oil minister for trade and international affairs Amir Hossein Zamaninia, “China, India, Japan, South Korea and other countries that were granted waivers from America to import Iranian oil are not willing to buy even one barrel more from Iran.” The “other countries” granted waivers by the United States are Italy, Greece, Taiwan and Turkey. On the surface this sounds like devastating news for Iran, which is already struggling with a lagging […]