Experts say the authorizations by the US Treasury Department for global aviation giants Airbus and Boeing will help wash away fears of banks and businesses in doing business with Iran.
The US Treasury Department on Wednesday issued licenses to global aviation giants Boeing and Airbus to sell planes to Iran after a delay of multiple months.
The deals of the two companies –once completed – will mark the biggest transactions in Iran’s business environment after the January removal of the sanctions.
Experts, as cited by media, emphasized that this will be specifically significant when considering that major banks and businesses still fear backlash from the remaining US sanctions against Iran and have accordingly largely stayed away from the lucrative Iranian market.
"A taboo has been broken. This deal will ease the fears of major foreign banks and companies which want to work with Iran," AFP quoted an unnamed official of an Iranian private as saying.
"It will allow financial channels to be put into place for big foreign banks to work with Iran."
Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany – the P5+1 – reached an agreement last summer by means of which Iran would restrict certain aspects of its nuclear energy activities in return for the removal of certain economic sanctions against the country by the P5+1.
The deal came into effect in January and literally opened the way for companies to approach the Iranian market.
Media have cited experts as saying that businesses will see the deals of Airbus and Boeing as examples of how business can be done with Iran without any fear of remaining US sanctions against the country.
“It removes some uncertainty,” Howard Rubel, an analyst at Jefferies, told the Irish Times of Boeing’s license. “It says that commerce is important and commerce builds bridges. It is also a pathfinder for other people that may want to do business with Iran over time.”
Meanwhile, Iran has indicated that it expects the licenses that the US Treasury Department has issued to Boeing and Airbus to lead to lead to wider authorizations in the near future.
Abbas Araqchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, was quoted by media as saying on Thursday that licenses would follow "in coming weeks", in comments following a meeting between Iran and major powers in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, AFP added.
Meanwhile, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani openly criticized the US Treasury Department for "complicating transactions" between Tehran and foreign companies and banks as an instance of Washington’s failure to implement the terms of the nuclear deal.
In his address to the UN General Assembly, Rouhani described US delays in implementing the nuclear deal as a “strategic mistake” that, as he emphasized, “needs to be compensated immediately”.
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