A London based energy research institute says efforts made by the US and the European Union to enforce sanctions against Iran's oil sector will fail if the sanctions are not joined by Asia’s economic giants, China and India.

A report by the Global Insight said that as Asian powers become more reliant on the Iranian crude, the US and the European Union will have to struggle to enforce practical sanctions against Iran's crude by those countries.

The report quoted the US Energy Department as saying that China, Japan, India and South Korea were the biggest users of Iran’s oil in the H1 of 2010, importing 1.46 million barrels per day of Iran's oil or 59% of the country’s crude exports.

At the same time, the EU’s biggest economies, Germany, France and the UK have together imported 77,000 barrels of Iranian crude.

Mr Simon Wardell energy research manager of Global Insight said that “It will be difficult to enforce a ban as India and China are not willing to back the ban. Iran will still be able to find buyers if they make concessions and lower their prices.”

Recently Mr Obama president of US signed into law new sanctions against Iran aimed to penalize other countries for doing transactions with Iran's Central Bank and importing the country’s crude oil.

The European Union followed suit by approving sanctions on January 23 to ban oil imports from Iran, freeze the country’s Central Bank assets within EU members and ban sale of diamonds, gold and other precious metals to Iran.

Despite efforts made by US officials to convince Asian countries to join the sanctions, Mr Pranab Mukherjee finance minister of India said on January 29th 2012 that his country will not cut back on oil imports from Iran.

(Sourced from Press TV)