Abdolnasser Hemmati announced in an Instagram post, "I issued the payment order and a transfer from a [foreign] bank account (other than the resources of the Central Bank in Korea) this morning."
"Necessary follow-ups in this regard will continue unabated," he added.
"The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has allocated €200 million to purchase the corona vaccine at this stage. We will provide more resources if needed," he added.
He informed that the CBI is doing the necessary coordination with the Ministry of Health in this regard and assured the Iranian nation that the purchase and transfer of the Covid-19 vaccine will be done as soon as possible.
On Wednesday, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran is on par with other countries in combating the coronavirus pandemic, giving an assurance that his administration has made arrangements to obtain reliable vaccines from abroad and develop a homegrown vaccine for the disease as well.
“We have gone ahead on par with the world and been even better than some countries in the fight against the virus,” he added.
The president also assured the people of Iran that the Central Bank and the Health Ministry have been doing their utmost and made arrangements to provide the society with a reliable foreign vaccine and develop a homegrown one.
Hemmati said while the purchases of the coronavirus vaccine should be made officially through the WHO, Iran has faced obstacles in every single way that it has tried to make payments and transfer currency for the purchase of vaccine “because of the US government’s inhumane sanctions and the need for permission from OFAC”, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury Department.
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