Daily Press Briefing by Spokesperson Marie Harf (Excerpts)

January 23, 2014

Related Country: 

  • India

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QUESTION: Can you please give us an update on what other countries, especially India, should expect from these relaxing sanctions? I had asked this question earlier, and --

QUESTION: On the oil trade.

MS. HARF: So basically, under the Joint Plan of Action and the implementation agreement that we agreed to, we are – countries who still do export oil from Iran, we are telling them that they do not need to further reduce their purchases, but they’re not allowed to increase, right? So we’ve been going to countries like India and others, asking them to continue reducing their oil purchases from Iran. Under the Joint Plan of Action, they don’t need to continue reducing, but they cannot increase.

QUESTION: And keeping the – okay, you say that the – keep the trade volume the same.

MS. HARF: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: But what about the – any relaxations in the payment methods? Because they have been changing the payment methods too because of the sanctions. And any other trades that gets affected, because there’s a lot of other trades going on between the two?

MS. HARF: Yeah. I’m happy to check on that. Yeah.

QUESTION: So you said that countries have been told that they no longer need to continue decreasing their purchases.

MS. HARF: Correct. Yes.

QUESTION: But they can’t increase. So are they no longer – could they go back up to what they had been --

MS. HARF: No.

QUESTION: -- or just what they hit is their --

MS. HARF: They have to stay where they are.

QUESTION: -- their floor.

MS. HARF: Correct.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. HARF: They have to stay where they are right now.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. HARF: They just don’t have to continue reducing, which normally we require countries to continue reducing under the oil infrastructure scheme.

QUESTION: Okay. But they can’t go back up to where they were beforehand.

MS. HARF: No. They cannot.

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: What is the cutoff date for that?

MS. HARF: The – well, implementation started on the 20th, so I think it’s July 20th? Let me double-check on that.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. HARF: Whatever six months is from January 20th. Obviously, there’s also an option to extend for another six months. Let me double-check the date. I think that’s right.

QUESTION: This six-monthly reduction is mandated by the Congress, right?

MS. HARF: Yep. And the Secretary sent waiver – the President delegated waiver authority to the Secretary on Monday. The Secretary sent the waivers up to the Hill the same day that implementation took place.

QUESTION: Okay. So he has signed the waiver?

MS. HARF: The waivers went up on Monday. The deal with the Joint Plan of Action and what we are waiving to Congress, yes, those went on Monday.

QUESTION: Normally, you release those waivers.

MS. HARF: We did. We released them. They all went out on our website on Monday. They’re all up there. Treasury obviously also has a part of this as well. I’m trying to see if I can find the date of – I don’t know where the last day is. I’m just trying to see if I can find it. But yes, we sent the waivers up on Monday, the day of implementation. Treasury also posted some information on their website for businesses and other – and countries about what to do in terms of sanctions.

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