Turkey will support gasoline sales by Turkish companies to Iran, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told Reuters Wednesday, despite US sanctions that aim to squeeze Tehran's fuel imports. The pledge came ahead of an expected resumption of talks next month between world powers and Tehran on the Iranian nuclear program, which Washington suspects aims to develop atomic weapons. “If the preference of the private sector is to sell these (petroleum) products to Iran, we will help them. There is no demand for Turkey to halt the trade of these products with Iran,” Yildiz said in an interview. Ankara has recently drawn closer to Tehran, its eastern neighbor. Together with Brazil, it brokered a deal in May for a nuclear fuel swap in Tehran, hoping that this would draw Iran and major powers back to the negotiating table. Iran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, gave an assurance that it would stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity if world powers agreed to the proposed nuclear fuel swap. World powers were lukewarm about the plan. Since June, the UN Security Council, the United States, and the European Union have imposed additional sanctions that increased the pressure on Tehran.
