The Angela Merkel led government has revealed on Tuesday morning that it had allowed the sale of medical items to Iran under a previously opposed trade channel.
The US had long disagreed with the formation of INSTEX, a channel used by the European Union to trade with Iran in order to circumvent US sanctions on Iran. Recently, this channel is up and running due to death figures from the novel coronavirus rising steadily in Iran.
“Germany, France and the United Kingdom confirm that INSTEX was successful in its first transaction, allowing the export of medical items from Europe to Iran” a statement from the German Foreign Office read.
A spokesperson for the United States Department made it clear to the National Interest that the US has no problems with the humanitarian trade as long as it is done with due carefulness to prevent the Iranian government form using it for their own purposes.
It is not known whether the first INSTEX sale was due to the coronavirus outbreak in Iran which commenced in January and has led to the deaths of at least 2,898 people as of Tuesday morning. The INSTEX channel was used to sell a German made machine which is utilized for blood treatment worth 500,000 Euros according to Wall Street Journal to and Iranian importer.
INSTEX was formed after the Trump led government broke off from a 2015 diplomatic agreement with the Iranian government and started imposing crippling sanctions which was aimed at depriving Iran access to the International markets in May 2018. European governments who remained in the deal decided to set up a back door channel in January 2019 to buy and sell medicine and food without using the US dollar.
US officials have mostly criticized INSTEX and have instead hyped a “humanitarian channel” in Switzerland which gives banks access to process medicine and food sales to Iran under close US surveillance. This channel first concluded its first shipment of medical items to Iran in February 2020; this is nearly two years after the US pressure campaign commenced.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had previously warned reporters that he expects US sanctions to be respected at a meeting on July 2019 meeting in France of the group of 7.
Brian Hook who is the State Department official tasked with overseeing the Iranian affairs laid emphasis that INSTEX had not processed even a single sale.
