Berlin: European countries have delivered medical supplies to Iran under the Instex mechanism to bypass US sanctions on Iran after it backed out of ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)’ agreed on July 14, 2015.
France, Germany and Britain have send essential medical supplies to Iran as the country struggle to contain catastrophic coronavirus outbreak due to crippling sanctions from United States.
According to the statement issued by German foreign ministry, “France, Germany and the United Kingdom confirm that INSTEX has successfully concluded its first transaction, facilitating the export of medical goods from Europe to Iran. These goods are now in Iran.”
“INSTEX aims to provide a sustainable, long-term solution for legitimate trade between Europe and Iran as part of the continued efforts to preserve the JCPOA. Now the first transaction is complete, INSTEX and its Iranian counterpart STFI will work on more transactions and enhancing the mechanism,” the statement added.
Trump administration has imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran in 2018 after withdrawing from the nuclear accord reached by the Barack Obama administration. The re-imposition of energy sanctions have since crippled Iran’s economy and prompted Tehran to retaliate by breaching its commitments under the nuclear deal.
The White House has resisted calls from some world leaders and human rights organizations to ease its ‘maximum pressure’ campaign of sanctions against Iran, which Tehran says is hampering its ability to contain the virus. Iranian officials have condemned United States sanctions and have termed them as ‘economic terrorism’.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been struggling to contain Middle East’s worst coronavirus outbreak, with death toll reaching 2,898 on Tuesday and 44,000 confirmed cases.
