TEHRAN, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. sanctions against Iran is the cause of turmoil in oil prices in the global market, Tasnim news agency quoted Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh as saying on Tuesday.
The U.S. is "wrongly" urging the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to lower oil prices, and it is the cause for market turbulence, Zanganeh said on the sidelines of an energy conference in Iran's capital Tehran.
The U.S. president is bullying others into cutting oil prices while the world market is facing a shortage of crude supplies, the Iranian minister said.
"One cannot keep the (oil) price low with slogans and bullying," Zanganeh added.
Saudi Arabia is now using its strategic oil reserves to compensate for the lack of Iranian oil, but it is unable to increase crude production much more and may stop releasing crude from its reserves, Zanganeh was quoted as saying.
Iran's First Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri said on Sunday that "Trump thinks that the Saudis can make up for Iran's (lost) oil share, but they cannot."
In May, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 international deal on Tehran's nuclear program and vowed to restore sanctions on Iran's oil exports on Nov. 4.
