TEHRAN – Iran’s foreign minister says India has actually put itself “on thereceiving end” of US “bullying” caving in to illegal sanctions and endingoil imports from country.

“India has certainly taken a stance against the sanctions… so that’s beenencouraging, (but) of course, we expected our friends to be more resilientvis-a-vis US pressure,” Mohammad Javad Zarif reportedly told told a groupof visiting journalists from New Delhi.

India was Iran’s second largest oil customer, importing 457,000 barrels ofoil a day before the US unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal,officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May2018.

India stopped importing oil from Iran In May 2019 after the White houseterminated sanctions waivers for major buyers of crude from the IslamicRepublic in an attempt to bring Iran’s oil exports to “zero.”

The top Iranian diplomat stressed that he understood why India “did notwant to agitate” the US by being a sanctions spoiler.

“People want to be on the right side of President [Donald] Trump,” but theproblem is “he hasn’t got a right side,” he added.

Zarif said India had placed itself “on the receiving end” of the US“bullying” by agreeing to abide by the American sanctions.

”You’re already being bullied by the US because they’re telling you not tobuy oil from us” and “if you can’t lift oil from us, we won’t be able tobuy Indian rice,” he said, expressing confidence that centuries-oldTehran-New Delhi ties would not be affected by US bans.

Zarif said Iran “will continue to sell its oil and countries will continueto buy it.”

“Iranian oil always has customers. The only difference is a bunch of peoplewill make a lot of money buying oil at a discount and selling it to others”at higher prices, he explained.

Iran is a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum ExportingCountries and sits on what were already the world’s fourth-biggest oilreserves and second-largest gas reserves.