South Korea have been given an exemption from US sanctions on Iranian oil, a Korean official said on Monday, Aljazeera reported.
"Petrochemicals are key to our economy, and we stressed that if we're hit by the Iran sanctions, it would pose grave challenges to our whole economy," the official said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The official went on to say that Seoul also won an exemption from the US to continue financial transactions with the Iranian central bank to facilitate oil imports.
Following the withdrawal of the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May, the country re-imposed its illegal sanctions targeting Iranian oil and banking sectors today.
South Korea, along with other main buyers of Iranian oil, have been seeking to get waivers from the US to continue their trade with Iran while the United States claimed that it aimed to bring down Iranian oil export to zero.
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