India's Bharat Petroleum Corp has made its first payment in rupees for Iranian oil, making it the first refiner to use an alternative payment channel to avoid Western sanctions on the Iranian oil industry ( Reuters 6/19 ). Notable Opinion – "The U.S. and Iran's Mistaken Path to War" NIAC president Trita Parsi writes that although the talks in Moscow did not breakdown, escalating sanctions will likely lead to dangerous Iranian counter-escalation: Under normal circumstances, an uneventful diplomatic encounter would hardly get noticed… That is not the situation between the West and Iran for a very simple reason — the U.S. and the EU are going to significantly escalate the pressure on Iran in the coming weeks. The EU's oil embargo and U.S. sanctions on Iran's oil sales will formally come into effect at the end of the month. And as unprecedented as these measures are, the U.S. will move shortly thereafter to impose even more sanctions to strangle Iran's oil exports.