The Iranian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Tehran will not allow any other state take its place in the international oil market, according to a report by Fars news agency.
On Monday, an unnamed US government official said President Donald Trump is confident Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will be able to compensate for the loss of Iranian oil, as Washington decided not to extend exemptions from its sanctions to countries that buy oil from Tehran.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow any country to replace Iran in the oil market," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said. "The United States and those countries will be responsible for any consequences."
The spokesman blasted Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for welcoming US sanctions against Iran.
China, Iran's largest oil buyer, has issued a formal complaint to the US over its decision not to extend the waivers for the sanctions regime. However, Beijing has not yet asked for more oil, according to Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih.
After the US re-imposed sanctions against Iran last November, it initially allowed the eight biggest purchasers of Iranian oil to keep buying limited amounts of it from Tehran. These waivers are set to expire on 2 May, and Washington has made the decision not to extend them.
The move comes as another step of Trump's policy of strangling of Iran, despite Tehran's strict adherence to the so-called Iran Nuclear Deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which Washington abandoned arbitrarily in May 2018. Earlier this month, Trump named Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terror organization, marking the first time a foreign government's armed forces received such a designation.
