India’s oil refiners will clear around $6.7billion of outstanding debt to Iran through Turkey’s Halkbank, according to a senior Iranian economy official.
The country is one of the biggest purchasers of Iranian crude and built up a payment backlog when Iran was under Western sanctions owing about $6.5billion to Iran.
India cleared around $770million in euros through Halkbank to the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) earlier in May.
Sadegh Akbari, Iran’s general director for foreign economic relations, said: “As per the instructions of the Central Bank of Iran, the local banks in India will transfer the money to Halkbank”.