BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, April 28 (Reuters) – The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged partner countries in Southeast Asia on Tuesday not to \u200cturn to Russia for oil supplies as they try to cope with widespread \u200cfuel shortages caused by the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n
The EU approved a fresh round of sanctions on Russia \u200bthis month, including tightened restrictions on oil trade, as it looks to undermine Moscow’s ability to fund its war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Kallas said Russia has benefited from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which has led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the main \u200ctransport route for about a \u2060fifth of the world’s oil supplies and other vital goods.<\/p>\n
“You have an energy crisis, and you need to have supplies. On the \u2060other hand, you have to see the big picture, which is that… if you buy Russian oil, they are able to continue with this war (in Ukraine),” she told Reuters in an \u200binterview \u200bafter meeting with foreign ministers from the Association \u200bof Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Brunei.<\/p>\n
Kallas \u200csaid the EU was seeking ASEAN’s cooperation on its sanctions against Russia, saying the 27-nation bloc aims to target Russian oil revenues rather than individual countries or companies in Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n
Southeast Asian nations including Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia are among the countries seeking to source more oil from Russia, Reuters reported last month.<\/p>\n
The purchase of Russian \u200coil is also helping Iran to maintain the \u200bclosure of the Strait of Hormuz, Kallas said, \u200bwithout elaborating.<\/p>\n
Kallas also questioned whether U.S. \u200bPresident Donald Trump’s administration would re-focus on peace efforts in Ukraine, \u200cfollowing a meeting between Russian President Vladimir \u200bPutin and Iranian Foreign \u200bMinister Abbas Araqchi on Monday.<\/p>\n
“If President Putin is openly praising Iran for their ‘heroic’ battles against America, does it then change America’s attitude towards Russia in the \u200bwar on Ukraine? Because \u200cthey have refrained so far from putting any pressure on Russia.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ain \u200bBandial in Bandar Seri Begawan; Writing by Rozanna Latiff and Danial Azhar; \u200bEditing by David Stanway and Gareth Jones)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, April 28 (Reuters) – The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged partner countries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[1490,442,329,8266,941,18804,7854,347],"class_list":{"0":"post-48202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kaja-kallas","8":"tag-foreign-policy","9":"tag-kaja-kallas","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russian-oil","12":"tag-sanctions-on-russia","13":"tag-southeast-asia","14":"tag-the-european-union","15":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116484416672482115","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}