ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkey will not abide by US sanctions on Iran, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday. “We do not have to adhere to the sanctions imposed on a country by another country. We don’t find the sanctions right either,” he told reporters in Baku, Azerbaijan. "We go along with UN sanctions like every country, but we do not necessarily need to go along with sanctions imposed by the US or UK against Iran,” he added. Turkish and American officials met last week to discuss US sanctions that will begin coming into force on August 4 after Washington withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal. US Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea had described the meeting as “positive.” Cavusoglu said on Tuesday that they had openly stated their stance to the Americans. “We held meetings with the United States in Ankara and told them openly: Turkey gets oil and gas from Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, and Iraq. If I don’t buy from Iran now, where am I supposed to meet that need from?” he said. Turkey gets more than half of its crude oil from Iran. Ankara has described Iran as an “important neighbour.” US President Donald Trump has called the nuclear agreement with Iran the “worst deal ever” and members of his administration have close ties with Iranian dissidents the Mujahedin al-Khalq (MEK), advocating for regime change. A day after sending an all-caps tweet to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani threatening consequences “the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before,” Trump struck a rather more conciliatory tone. “We’re ready to make a real deal, not the deal that was done by the previous administration, which was a disaster,” he said at a veterans event, AP reported.
