Iran said on Tuesday it had so far been able to sell as much oil as it needs despite U.S. pressure.

The government however, urged European countries that opposed the U.S. sanctions to do more to shield Iran.

The U.S. on Monday restored sanctions targeting Iran’s oil, banking and transport sectors and threatened more action to stop what Washington called its “outlaw” policies – steps that Tehran called economic warfare and vowed to defy.

The measures are part of a wider effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to curb Tehran’s missile and nuclear programmes and diminish the Islamic Republic’s influence in the Middle East, notably its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

Trump is targeting Iran’s main source of revenue, its oil exports, as well as its financial sector, essentially making 50 Iranian banks and their subsidiaries off-limits to foreign banks, on pain of losing access to the U.S. financial system.

“The Americans constantly said they would reduce the sale of Iran’s oil to zero but I have to say that, so far, we have been able to sell our required amounts of oil.

“The Americans, with the help of propaganda, don’t see the realities,’’ Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said.

Jahangiri said he had spoken to a handful of managers from companies on the U.S. sanctions list, and that some had already formulated plans on how to deal with the measures.

However, Iran’s oil minister wrote to OPEC’s secretary general calling for two committees that monitor an output deal with non-OPEC countries to be scrapped, accusing them of siding with the United States.

The head of Iran’s Central Bank, Abdolnasser Hemmati, said Iranian banks should use their previous experience dealing with sanctions to support the foreign trade process and financial transfer. (Reuters/NAN)