Difficult to buying Russian oil: Miftah

KARACHI: Finance Minister Miftah Ismail on Tuesday said ‘difficult to imagine buying Russian oil’. The government has approached Russia and Ukraine to buy wheat. But Western sanctions have made any oil import impossible from Moscow.

Russia is under sanctions and has not responded to the letter written to it by the previous government, but we have asked either Ukraine or Russia, whichever country can sell us wheat, we would be happy to buy wheat from them; said Ismail in an interview with CNN.

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Ismail said the previous PTI government wrote a letter to the Russian Federation, “which was never responded to”.

“Russia has also not offered us any oil. I mean it is difficult for me to imagine buying Russian oil.”

If Russia offers Pakistan oil at cheaper rates and there are no sanctions on the country to buy that oil, “sure, we’d consider that”, he added.

“However, at this point it would be not possible for Pakistani banks to open LCs or arrange to buy Russian oil and nor has for that matter Russian Federation offered to sell us any oil.”

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Refuting former prime minister Imran Khan’s claims, Ismail said, “First of all Russia has not offered a 30 percent discount on oil or wheat”. “Let’s be clear. I don’t know where Khan gets these numbers from.”

“Khan just makes it up as he goes along. He is the guy who was saying we (PDM) were brought in through an American conspiracy. And now he has come up with this new thing. If Russia was selling him cheap wheat and oil then why didn’t he buy it. He did not.”