The approvals from the US Treasury Department allow both aerospace giants to proceed with sales worth billions of dollars into a country that had been entirely off limits prior to the landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
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Iran Air announced in January it planned to buy Airbus planes, but the transaction stalled amid a lack of approvals from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’sOffice of Foreign Assets Control rules. The lifting of sanctions was meant to bring economic relief to the Iranian people, yet that relief has been in short supply since last July.
Dubon said Airbus hoped to receive a second license allowing it to sell the remaining planes to Iran soon. The Air Force is already looking at a follow on to Boeing’s KC-46 tanker that could feature high tech advances like radar-absorbing material and a laser. For example, the USA continues to block companies from doing business with Iran in US dollars. That deal is also awaiting USA government approval.
Opponents of the Boeing deal pointed out that the Treasury imposed sanctions on Iran Air in 2011 for using passenger and cargo planes to transport rockets and missiles to places such as Syria, sometimes disguised as medicine or spare parts.
Most Iranian planes were purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought Islamists to power.
According to a spokesman for Boeing, the license covered the sale of 80 planes to Iran’s national carrier, Iran Air (See: Post-sanctions Iran moving fast to upgrade civil aviation).
It will take years for all of the planes to be delivered, with the $17.6 billion Boeing deal providing 80 aircraft between 2017 and 2025. “I find it hard to believe that Iran, with this pressing need it has for new planes, that it’s going to tempt fate”.
Many sanctions against Iran still remain. The license announced Wednesday covers the first 17 planes involved in the deal, which will be A320s and A330s, he said.
Airbus expects the USA government to approve the sale of the remaining 101 planes in the next few weeks.
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While the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – a lasting nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers- came into force in January, some Iranian officials have complained about the United States failure to fully implement the accord.
