India will pay $700 million of its oil import debt to Iran, the Indian Express, an English-language daily newspaper published in India, reported Friday.
"The finance ministry issued order on Wednesday to release $700 million to National Iranian Oil Company. The order for second payment could be issued next month," the newspaper said according to its sources.
However, this amount is only half of what the U.S. Treasury Department had cleared last month. The department's Office of Foreign Assets Control had given authorization for India to pay Iran $1.4 billion that come from oil debt.
Due to the sanctions, Tehran could not be able to collect its frozen assets before reaching a final nuclear agreement with the world powers P5+1 group. Thus, despite exporting limited amount of crude oil to foreign countries under the sanctions regime, Tehran was unable to collect debt from oil importing parties.
Meanwhile, India's total oil debt to Iran is over $6.5 billion, according to Iranian Republic News Agency (IRNA).
During his visit to India on August 16, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had said the two countries' central banks and state officials are working on technicalities about the topic.
India is the second biggest importer of Iranian crude oil after China.
By Ovunc Kutlu
Anadolu Agency
ovunc.kutlu@aa.com.tr