EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. A security personnel looks on at oil docks at the port of Kalantari in the city of Chabahar, 300km (186 miles) east of the Strait of Hormuz January 17, 2012. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan this week became the first of Iran's oil buyers to make a payment for crude imports under an interim nuclear deal, sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as the West eased a year-long stranglehold on revenues that has crippled the Iranian economy.
Tough international sanctions over the past two years have cut Iran's oil exports in half. U.S. measures imposed a year ago stopped the remaining importers of Iranian oil from transferring cash to Tehran, starving the OPEC member of its principal source of hard currency and forcing Iran to the negotiating table over its disputed nuclear programme.
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