Iran says that it's halted oil sales to France and Britain in retaliation for a European Union ban on Iranian oil which takes effect in July. A spokesman said Iran would instead sell its oil to new customers. Our correspondent Joe Lynam says the move will have little impact.
伊朗称,为报复欧盟将于7月份实施的针对伊朗石油禁令,将停止向法国和英国销售石油。一名发言人称,伊朗会向新客户出售石油。不过BBC记者Joe Lynam说这一举动收效不大。
What I think is interesting is that they have picked out Britain and France specifically because Britain and France are major diplomatic players of course, but they are not major purchasers of Iranian oil. If they really want to make an anti-EU statement, they would just say 'We are banning oil exports to the European Union.' But that would shoot themselves in the foot because Italy accounts for 7% of Iran's exports of oil, Spain about 6% and Greece around 3%. So they're diplomatically slapping Britain and France in the face, but it will have no impact on France or British supplies of oil because they don't buy that much.
我觉得这件事很有趣,伊朗专门选了英国和法国,因为这两个国家是外交角色的扮演者,但他们却不是伊朗石油的主要购买者。如果伊朗真的想宣布反欧盟声明,他们应该说“我们将禁止向欧盟出口石油。”但这将是搬起石头砸自己的脚,因为意大利占伊朗石油出口量的7%,西班牙占6%,希腊占3%。所以,伊朗只是在外交上扇了英国和法国一巴掌,但对这两个国家的石油供应影响不大,因为它们买不了那么多。