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News ID: 86675
Publish Date : 18 January 2021 - 21:19

CBI: EU Lacked Enough Courage to Uphold Instex


TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Iran’s central bank has criticized a European Union payment channel designed to allow European companies to avoid U.S. sanctions, portraying it as useless and saying Iran won’t be diverting resources to it.
European governments have "no idea” how to finance the conduit set up two years ago, known as Instex, and "have not had enough courage to maintain their economic sovereignty,” the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) said in comments on Twitter.
Spearheaded by France, Germany and the UK, Instex was set up in January 2019 and its first transaction was carried out March 2020. The channel has only moved small amounts of capital for a few medical shipments, which are technically exempt from sanctions.
The CBI statement came in response to Germany, blaming Iran for the failure of the channel and accusing the Islamic Republic of not agreeing to the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal.
"Instex was supposed to shape trade relations between Iran and Europe independent of U.S. sanctions, not define it within the framework of sanctions,” the statement added.
According to Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht-Ravanchi, who was a member of the team that negotiated the nuclear deal, Instex has proved ineffective over the past two years.
The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges was introduced on January 31, 2019 by France, Germany, and Britain - the three European signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iran nuclear is officially called.  
After the Europeans failed to bring the channel into meaningful operation and protect Iran’s interests under the JCPOA, Iran began to reduce its nuclear commitments on May 8, 2019 when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran.