Iran’s central bank 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 said in comments on Twitter.
Iran’s comments coincide with the U.S. presidential transition from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, who was vice president under Barack Obama.
Trump withdrew the U.S. from a six-power nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and restored a swath of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Biden told the New York Times in December he will look for “follow-on agreements to tighten and lengthen Iran’s nuclear constraints” and address its missile program, something Iran has said is strictly off limits.
Spearheaded by France, Germany and the U.K., 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.
