China’s state-owned energy giant CNPC is ready to replace French energy company Total’s stake in the Iranian South Pars gas project. In 2017, Total and CNPC signed a 20-year contract worth 4.8 billion dollars to develop Phase 11 of Iran’s South Pars field. Sputnik spoke with political analyst Tom McGregor about CNPC’s acquisition plan. [...]

According to Reuters' sources, the meeting will solely focus on the implementation issues and details of the Iran nuclear deal. Diplomats from Germany, France, Britain, led by senior EU diplomat Helga Schmid, and also from Russia and China, will be meeting in Vienna next week to discuss a new agreement with Iran similar to the 2015 deal, but one that would put curbs on Tehran's ballistic [...]

France’s economy minister has suggested that the EU may compensate European companies affected by US sanctions on Iran, stressing that the bloc should not accept Washington as “the economic gendarme of the planet.” [...]

The “ice age” against Moscow must be ended, the chairperson of Germany's Die Linke (Left Party) has stated, adding that sanctions against Russia hurt European companies. Speaking to Germany's Osnabrucker Zeitung newspaper on Saturday, Sahra Wagenknecht said the ice age in relation to Russia has to be ended. [...]

The European Union has moved to protect the interests of its companies that do business in Iran, following the United States decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal. President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US was withdrawing from the landmark pact unleashed a wave of criticism from the international community. Now the EU has threatened to take the US to the World Trade Organizatio [...]

Russia's Federation Council is looking to adopt counter-sanctions against the US, under which the country may ban exports of titanium components to aircraft giant Boeing, according to Russian Senator Sergey Ryabukhin. "Among the rare earth metals that Russia supplies to the United States is titanium, which is necessary for the technological cycle of production of Boeing," Ryabukhin told RIA Novost [...]

Russian lawmakers have drafted a bill suspending cooperation with US companies in the nuclear, missile and aircraft-building spheres, as well as introducing restrictions on imports of alcohol and tobacco produced in the US. “The bill is about alcohol and tobacco products and about ceasing or suspending international cooperation in the nuclear sphere, rocket engine building and aircraft building [...]

The gradual lifting of sanctions against Russia may start if the Moscow-backed plan to deploy UN peacekeepers in the conflict area of eastern Ukraine is implemented, interim German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said. [...]

A majority of French and Germans, along with a considerable number of Britons and Poles, oppose the new US bill which may result in European companies being punished for cooperating with Russia. The French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop) has conducted an opinion poll for Sputnik in order to try and determine how Europeans will react toward a new bill implemented by the US that threatens to impo [...]

Anti-Russian sanctions have achieved nothing other than placing a significant burden on the German economy, prime ministers of two German federal states have argued, calling on fellow regional leaders to demand their lifting. [...]

Washington has once again misread Moscow, not expecting that a series of anti-Russia measures adopted under the Obama and Trump administration would result in the large-scale expulsion of US diplomats from Russia, Pavel Salin, the director of the Center for Political Studies at Moscow's Financial University, told Radio Sputnik. [...]

Russia will only stand to gain from US sanctions, which also threaten to sour Washington’s relations with its European partners, political analyst Dmitry Solonnikov told Sputnik. "The sanctions will not only have negative consequences for Russia, but will also hurt Europe and the US itself.   [...]

New penalties against Moscow proposed by US lawmakers violate international law and officials in Brussels should consider countermeasures, the German economy minister said on Monday. "We consider this as being against international law, plain and simple,"Brigitte Zypries told the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper chain. [...]

The latest US sanctions targeting Russia's oil and gas sector will cause Gazprom some headaches in building the new gas pipeline to Germany, experts say. However, US restrictions are unlikely to stop the project. "The price of any project automatically increases," Tatiana Mitrova, director of the Skolkovo Energy Center told Reuters. [...]

Rex Tillerson’s mind-boggling claim the US wants to hurt Russia with sanctions to help foster better relations is arguably just a sign of a greater problem in the Trump administration, which seems struggling to form a consistent foreign policy. [...]

There are several ways Russia could respond to the new US sanctions bill. At the same time, according to experts, the response should be cautious and well calculated. The US Senate has passed a new version of a sanctions bill on Russia, Iran and North Korea. [...]

It is time for the EU to decide whether they want to defend Europeans and European business interests and stand up against what the Americans are trying to do, says MEP Nathan Gill from the UK Independence Party. [...]

The member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs claims that Brussels needs to restore strong dialogue and cooperation with Moscow as the anti-Russia sanctions lost any economic reasoning and turned into a mere political instrument. [...]

A brief trip to Crimea in June 2017 made me understand: Crimea wants to be a part of the "bigger world," but only together with Russia. The theme of economic sanctions against Russia and especially against its region of Crimea is becoming a real bonanza for lawyers. [...]

Matteo Salivini, leader of Italian opposition Lega Nord party, told Sputnik on Friday that the extension of the European Union's anti-Russian sanctions was "absurd," since the restrictive measures were damaging for the economies of both Italy and the entire 28-member-bloc. [...]

US and British troops this week joined thousands of NATO forces to conduct war games in Poland rehearsing the 'possible' blockade of Baltic states by Russia. Talk about mental blockade. [...]

Austrian and Germany have lashed out at Washington over new sanctions against Russia that target the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe. [...]