The US has exempted India and six other countries from tough new financial sanctions on Iran’s oil trade citing significant reduction in imports of Iranian oil by them.

“I have made the determination that seven economies — India, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan — have all significantly reduced their volume of crude oil purchases from Iran,” the Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, had said in a statement yesterday.

She said exemptions from US sanctions would be granted to these nations. In March, she had made exemptions for European Union nations and Japan from tough new financial sanctions that kick into force later this month.

Ms Clinton issued the statement in this regard hours before the External Affairs Minister, Mr S.M. Krishna, was to arrive in Washington to co-chair the third India-US Strategic Dialogue along with his American counterpart.

Crude imports from Iran have a steadily declining share in India’s total oil imports — dropping from a level of over 16 per cent in 2008-09 to almost 10 per cent in 2011-12.

India, however, downplayed Ms Clinton’s decision of exempting it from economic sanctions for cutting the oil imports from Iran, saying that it was a “decision taken by the Obama Administration under its domestic law’’.

“We have seen the US notification exempting Indian financial institutions from the application of the provisions of US domestic law for energy-related transactions with Iranian Central Bank and other financial institutions designated by US Government.

“This is a decision taken by the US Government under its domestic law,” the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson, Syed Akbaruddin, said.

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