TEHRAN – France and Japan have jointly proposed offering Iran over $18 billion in credit lines if Tehran comes fully back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Russian state-run news agency Sputnik reported on Sunday.

The Persian language website of Sputnik reported that the Japanese government has decided to provide backup for France’s initiative after Tehran demanded further credit to compensate negative impacts of U.S. sanctions.

The news agency added that the newly-offered credit line will be at least $18.42 billion. 

In the meantime, Tokyo believes that such financial supports may pave the way for resumption of talks between Tehran and Washington over the JCPOA, the agency added. 

Its seems the guarantee for the mentioned credit line will be Iran’s crude exports and that the credit line will be restricted to importing food stuff and medicine by Iran. 

The United States unilaterally quit the JCPOA and re-imposed sanctions on Iran in May 2018 and tightened them sharply this year. However, after passage of a year Iran has decided to gradually remove limits on its nuclear program and has set a deadline to scale back its nuclear commitments further unless the Europeans keep their promises to salvage the deal.

Under the agreement, endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, Iran is tasked to put caps on its nuclear program in exchange for termination of economic and financial sanctions.
 
MJ/PA