Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.11
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
India has agreed to pay its debt to Iran in U.S. dollars for importing Iranian crude oil, the Tasnim News Agency reported on December 11.
A delegation of Iranian officials led by Gholamali Kamyab, deputy governor at the Iranian Central Bank is in India until December 13. The group met officials of the finance ministry and Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday.
This is while, Arvind Mayaram, a senior official at India's finance ministry, said that for now, India would not release any dollar payments it was holding back from Iranian imports, Reuters reported.
The Central Bank of Iran has issued a statement in which it asserted that Iranian officials have reached agreement in all spheres with Indian counterparts.
Indian and Iranian officials are meeting this week to discuss how to unlock the first oil payments to Iran since the United States and other world powers eased sanctions last month in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear programme.
Last month six world powers and Tehran reached an interim deal that provided limited relief to Iran from economic sanctions, opening the way for some oil payments to resume.
India and Iran are to discuss how to restart oil payments in foreign currencies including a plan to process partial payments for oil in euros through a Turkish bank, two government sources said.
India is Iran's second largest buyer, but its oil imports from OPEC members plunged to about 170,000 bpd in the April-October period, a decline of about 40 per cent from a year ago, according to tanker arrival data made available to Reuters.