Tehran, Iran, May 17
Trend:
Iran is trying to remove handmade Persian carpets from the US sanctions list by insisting that sanctioning of culture and art is against international conventions.
"The US has re-imposed sanctions against our country and the first commodity after oil was handmade Persian carpet," said head of Iran National Carpet Center Fereshteh Dastpak, Trend reports citing Mehr News Agency.
"This sanction is against basic principles of international conventions, since Iran's carpet is based on art and culture and can not be sanctioned," she said.
"Although Trump is a businessman and knows the basics of trade but unfortunately he sanctioned a commodity that belongs to civilization of Iran and we seek to remove handmade Persian carpet from sanctions list," she added.
"The 27th Iran Handmade Carpet Exhibition in 2018 was met with good response from foreign and domestic businessmen, but after the economic situation deteriorated thanks to the sanctions, 30 percent of Iran handmade carpet exports to the US have been cut," Dastpak said.
"Around 80 percent of handmade carpet production is exported to foreign countries while 20 percent is sold domestically," she said.