TEHRAN – The Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) criticized the European parties of the Iran nuclear deal for repeating ‘threadbare’ remarks over their promised trade mechanism for Iran (INSTEX) and failing in realizing their promises.

“It has been some two months since Iran created the Special Trade and Finance Institute (STFI) which is a mirror company to INSTEX. The easiest way to operationalize INSTEX and STFI is for the Europeans to start importing oil from Iran or granting a letter of credit to European exporters to the country,” Abdolnasser Hemmati wrote in an Instagram post on Monday.

Mentioning the Europeans concerns over U.S. reaction the official said, “They can simply test their ability by exporting emergency supplies and medicine.”
“The ball of implementing INSTEX is now in Europe's court,” he added.

In late January 2018, European signatories of JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) announced the establishment of a special trade mechanism dubbed as INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) in a bid to save JCPOA after the withdrawal of the United States from it.

INSTEX, which has yet to become operational, is registered in Paris and headed by German banker Per Fischer who visited Iran last week and discussed the status of the mechanism with Iranian officials.

The mechanism is said to initially cover trades of food, medicine and medical devices and to gradually include other areas.

EF/MA