SA gets waiver on Iran oil sanctions

Washington - South Africa is one of 10 countries that got a six-month waiver from the US on Iran sanctions in exchange for their agreeing to reduce oil purchases.

The US State Department on Wednesday renewed waivers on Iran sanctions for South Africa, China, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan.

Japan and 10 EU countries got waivers earlier this spring.

"The United States and the international community stand shoulder to shoulder in maintaining pressure on the Iranian regime until it fully addresses concerns about its nuclear program," Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.

The waivers, which the State Department calls exceptions mean that financial institutions in the consumer countries do not risk being cut off from the US financial system for the next six months.

Sanctions are one of Washington's main strategies to choke funding to Iran's nuclear program, which Western countries suspect seeks to develop the ability to make weapons. Iran insists the program is for peaceful purposes.

State Department and Treasury officials have pushed consumer countries to "significantly reduce" their purchases of Iranian oil without defining the volumes that have to be cut.

US and EU sanctions more than halved Iran's oil shipments last year, helping to devalue the rial, the country's currency, and pushing up inflation.

This May the sanctions drove the Islamic Republic's crude exports to the lowest level in decades according to industry sources and tanker tracking data.

Despite the damage the sanctions have done to its economy, Iran's government has foreign currency reserves worth tens of billions of dollars with which it can fund the nuclear programme. There is little evidence the sanctions have slowed the programme ahead of a presidential election in Iran next week.

President Barack Obama on Monday issued an executive order imposing sanctions on foreign financial institutions that facilitate deals in the rial, which has lost two-thirds of its dollar value since late 2011.

Lawmakers in Congress also hope to pass legislation this year that could further limit Iran's oil sales and reduce Tehran's access to its foreign currency accounts, mostly held in euros.