Reuters:

Iraq’s oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani has said Iranian oil tankers seized by U.S. forces in the Gulf were using forged Iraqi documents.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has restored “maximum pressure” on Iran, reviving a policy that seeks to isolate the country from the global economy and eliminate its oil export revenue in order to slow Tehran’s development of a nuclear weapon.

Abdel-Ghani was asked if he had received messages from the United States over the possibility that state oil marketer SOMO could be subject to sanctions itself over the violation of Iranian sanctions.

“We received some verbal inquiries about oil tankers being detained in the Gulf by U.S. naval forces carrying Iraqi shipping manifests,” the oil minister said on state television late on Sunday, adding there had been no formal written communication.

“It turned out that these tankers were Iranian … and were using forged Iraqi documents. We explained this to the relevant authorities with complete transparency and they also confirmed this.”

The Iranian oil ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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