According to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made the remarks after attending a meeting of the Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission along with the deputies and senior managers of the Economy Ministry and Central Bank of Iran (CBI) on Monday to discuss the newly announced financial channel known as the INSTEX by three major European countries for trade with Iran under the US sanctions.
It was reported earlier today by the spokesman of the Commission, Zarif had said in the meeting that the foreign ministry had objected to Europe for the late launch of the trade mechanism.
Zarif told reporters after the meeting in Commission that the delays in establishment of the INSTEX was due to different reasons including the US pressures.
The foreign minister further added that in the statement that was read by three foreign ministers of UK, France and Germany at the time of announcing the INSTEX((Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges), a Special Purpose Vehicle aimed at facilitating legitimate trade between European economic operators and Iran, ), he did not feel there were any preconditions in their statement..
He noted “Europeans must start to take the steps to which they are committed,” adding that “they themselves mentioned this in the statement.”
The Iranian top diplomat further said that the three Europeans foreign ministers did not talk about the FATF as preconditions in their statement.
He went on to explain more that Iran’s trade partners have been advising the Iranian government to join the FATF in order to have easier foreign banking exchanges.
Zarif underlined that the INSTEX should be of greater importance for Europeans to prove their independence from the United States than for Iran.
“We are waiting to see what the Europeans will do. That does not mean that we have not done anything in the last 9 months (since June when the EU promised Iran to secure its interests in a bid to keep the nuclear deal alive). We have our relations with Russia, China, India, Turkey, Iraq and other countries, and we continue our way, and we will not wait for Europe, if Europe wants to prove that it is a reliable partner, it needs to take action.”
The top diplomat praised the establishment of the trade mechanism as a good political move on the part of the Europeans against the United States.
Zarif added “Europeans did this very late, and we have not seen its implementation yet. We have to wait and see what the Europeans will do in practice.”
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