Baku, Azerbaijan, March 16
By Temkin Jafarov - Trend:
Iran's Deputy Road Minister for Aviation Affairs, Ali Mohammad Nourian said till now Iran was unable to use its 130 planes because of international sanctions imposed on it, Mehr News Agency reported on March 16.
However, Nourian said 80 grounded planes have been prepared to be operated and they will soon resume passenger transportations, according to the report.
He stressed that some of the grounded planes needed spare parts in order to repair them and other planes needed fuel to be operated.
"Despite the fact that we bought spare parts needed for repairing the planes, we were not able to bring them to Iran because of the sanctions," Nourian added. "In recent months we have established good relations with firms producing spare parts for planes and we hope that we will bring those 130 planes to a condition capable of conducting flights".
He said Iran's air transportation industry was one of the areas to suffer most from the sanctions.
Nourian went on to say that the sanctions on the purchase of spare parts for aircraft were lifted.
"We hope that all bans on Iran's air transportation industry will be lifted soon," he added.
Earlier the managing director of Islamic Republic of Iran Airline (Iran Air), Farhad Parvaresh said that supplying plane parts to Iran awaits permission of the U.S. Treasury Department.
In total, about one fourth of 100 Iranian grounded planes will resume their flights, after supplying the needed plane parts, Parvaresh added.
Tehran is allowed limited purchases of aircraft spare parts and repairs based on the Geneva deal.
On Jan. 12, Iran and P5+1 (UN Security Council's five permanent members - Russia, China, France, the United States and United Kingdom plus Germany) agreed to assign January 20 as a date to start implementing the interim nuclear deal that the two sides struck in Geneva on November 24, 2013.
On Jan. 20, the U.S. and the European Union suspended part of the sanctions against Iran after the IAEA confirmed earlier that Iran had halted 20-percent uranium enrichment under the Geneva agreement.
Translated by E.A.