Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has criticized the European Union's 'illogical' move to put Iran's biggest tanker firm back on its sanctions list, IRNA reported.
Expressing his concerns over West's way of thinking, Zarif said the West believes sanctions were a leverage that forced Iran to the negotiating table.
"If they really think their sanctions are effective, then why they negotiate with us, while they can continue their sanctions on Iran," he said in an interview with MNA.
Iran says it is going to negotiate with the UK to remove its biggest tanker firm from the list of sanctioned Iranian entities.
An informed source from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said on Saturday that NITC has sent a legal team to London to discuss a recent move by the UK's Treasury to re-impose sanctions on the company.
The source said the Iranian legal team will try to remove NITC from the list of sanctioned entities before London takes any punitive measure against the company.
The UK Treasury's move against NITC, the source said, is politically motivated and is against the nature of current diplomatic talks over the fate of sanctions and Iran's nuclear energy program.
The source further added that no change is expected to happen with regards to the status of sanctions against NITC given that the company will still be under the general sanctions by the European Union.
NITC is a subsidiary of NIOC and transports Iranian crude to export markets. The company has a transport capacity of 11 million tons a year and is considered as the biggest tanker company in the Middle East and 4th in the world.