KUALA LUMPUR (TheMalaysianInsider)— Former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad said last Tuesday that Petronas has the right to supply gasoline to Iran, saying the Persian Gulf nation is an important trading partner.

“Initially when I read the report that Datuk Seri Najib had ordered Petronas to stop supplying gasoline to Iran I couldn’t understand it because Iran has a lot of gasoline, so I was disappointed,” said Mahathir when asked about the suspension of Malaysia’s gasoline supply to Iran.
“But later Datuk Seri Najib denied that he had ordered the cancellation and he said it was purely a commercial deal. So it is Petronas’ right to sell to anybody,” he said at a press conference here.
Late last week, foreign news agencies reported that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had confirmed that the national oil company has stopped supplying gasoline to Iran.
Najib denied the report a day later saying that the transaction was a one-off sale and there has been no new order.
His denial was followed by a statement from Petronas which stated that the decisions regarding the sales were based purely on commercial reasons.
Iran currently imports 40 percent of its gasoline supplies due to the drop in investment in petroleum refineries in that country.
When it was pointed out that Iran is facing possible international sanctions over its nuclear program, Mahathir dismissed it as another example of the oppressive foreign policy of the United States.
“The international sanctions are an American job. A lot of countries do not approve of the sanctions. China is still trading with Iran and so is Russia. If it is ‘international’ (then) all countries would have to adhere to it,” he added.
“This is how America oppresses the others. If people die, like the sanctions on Iraq where 500,000 children died, they said it is all right. This was what Madeline Albright said,” he added in a reference to the former secretary of state in the late 1990s.