A member of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, told Mehr News correspondent on Monday that conditioning the implementation of the trade mechanism on issues outside the JCPOA framework, namely the FATF-related bills, is against international commitments.
“Europe must put the payment mechanism into effect as a way to implement its commitments and obligations under the JCPOA,” he added.
France, Germany and the United Kingdom on Thursday issued a joint statement on the creation of INSTEX (Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges), a Special Purpose Vehicle aimed at facilitating legitimate trade between European economic operators and Iran, in a bid to bypass the US sanctions and convince Iran to remain in the nuclear deal following the US unilateral withdrawal from the agreement.
Naghavi Hosseini maintained that some European officials have conditioned the implementation of the payment channel on Iran’s endorsement of FATF-related bills or negotiations over its missile program.
“We will have no negotiations whatsoever on our missile program,” he stressed.
The Iranian lawmaker went on to add, however, that the creation of the EU’s trade mechanism for Iran is an important step, voicing hope that it would continue to have as much transparency as the nuclear deal.
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