Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.5 / Trend F.Milad/
"India's oil debt to Iran, remained unpaid due to banking problems, is now paid off as a result of cooperation of the two central banks. So, India has no oil debts to Iran," the Iranian ambassador to India said.
Speaking to the Mehr news agency, Mehdi Nabizadeh added that the two sides are bound to their oil deals and Iran is currently exporting oil to India.
India faced problem to pay Iran for oil in December, when the Reserve Bank of India halted a clearing mechanism under the U.S. pressure imposed to curtail trade with Iran.
Some payments were made through the Germany-based Europaeisch-Iranische Handelsbank (EIH or European-Iranian Trade Bank), a conduit that was also blocked under the U.S. pressure.
Then India paid off some of its debt through some banks in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, but India's finance minister recently said Turkish and UAE banks cannot conduct transactions of such large amounts of money for Iran and India.
The director of the International Department of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said on Oct. 28 that India has paid off all its oil debt to Iran through Russian Gazprombank.
Iran has received long overdue payments for its oil exports to India, the Mehr News Agency reports with reference to Mohsen Qamsari.
"Different options are being worked out by the Central Bank of Iran and NIOC to arrange payments for oil exports to India," he said, adding that Iran will not use a single source for receiving payments from India.
India imports 400,000 barrels of Iranian crude oil per day, and Indian refineries have been designed to handle Iranian heavy crude.