Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Feb. 5, 2019 – Last week, after months of delay, the so-called E3, Germany, France and the UK, announced the creation of a limited liability company set up as a Special Purpose Vehicle to allow European companies to trade with Iran through financial channels that are cleverly isolated from the global flow of money to avoid U.S. sanction.
In a press conference after the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Bucharest, Romania, the E3's foreign ministers, Germany's Heiko Mass, UK's Jeremy Hunt, and France's Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced the official registration of INSTEX—short for "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges—but postponed its operations to after when more details have been hammered out.
Iran official television channel reports: "Today, on the sidelines of EU foreign ministers' meeting in Romania, the creation of the special financial channel for Iran and Europe has been announced after months of delay. This financial channel has been called "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges" and a German banker will head it. The effectiveness of the financial mechanism is questionable, because it cannot protect European companies against U.S. sanctions."
Germany's Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA; German Press Agency) writes: "The most important deficiency of this special financial vehicle is that it cannot prevent U.S. sanctions and fines against European countries. Therefore, this financial institution works only for those companies which have no economic activities with U.S. companies at all."
In a tweet, Javad Zarif, the Iranian regime’s foreign minister, welcomed the registration of an official trading channel between the EU and Iranian regime and described it as a very much delayed step by EU members of the JCPOA to implement the their May 2017 obligations.
The Iranian regime's spokesperson for the foreign ministry also welcomed the development as EU's first step and asked for the full implementation of EU's obligations as soon as possible.
Bahram Qassemi, said that it's unfortunate that, "up until now, we haven't witnessed any tangible result and concrete action for Iran to benefit [from the JCPOA]."
Abbas Araqchi, political deputy of the foreign minister, complained about reports that the mechanism only covers non-sanctioned goods (like food and medicaments), and expressed his hopes that at some point the mechanism will also cover sanctioned goods.
Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's allies, on the other hand, were furious and disappointed.
State-run Mehr news agency writes: "The channel was supposed to be registered and become operational end last year, but technical difficulties and hosting issues have been announced as reasons why its registration and operation have been delayed."
"But Europe's latest violation of its promise to register and implement this channel alludes to another reality. While Heiko Mass, Germany's FM, was talking about how soon the financial mechanism would be set up, some media outlets suggested that the delay in implementing it has its roots in differences about one of its ten provisions that concerns the Yemeni crisis," Mehr further writes.
"In recent months, Europeans have shown signs of cooperation with the U.S. including accusations against Iran about spying the German military and Jean-Yves Le Drian's threats that if no agreement is reached about Iran's missile activities new sanctions will be imposed," Mehr news adds and concludes: "Europe, while trying to show itself committed to the JCPOA, seems to be in line with the [goal's] of the U.S. by repeatedly raising the Iranian missile issue, regional issues and accusations of Iran's support for terrorism."
