Emadi: Lifting Sanctions Will Take Time

On Tuesday, the Islamic Consultative Assembly approved the details of a plan requiring the government to uphold nuclear rights. The first article of this plan states, "The lifting of sanctions must be included in the text of the agreement and must occur on the day Iran fulfills its commitments." Mehrdad Emadi, an economist based in London, stated in an interview with Radio Farda that the lifting or suspension of sanctions has its own legal mechanisms and that lifting some of them will take time. Emadi emphasized that it is practically impossible to lift all sanctions at once within a day or even a week, due to administrative and legal constraints, as well as the fact that sanctions are not uniform. Different sanctions, whether related to investment, banking, trade, or technology, have varying qualities in terms of execution and oversight. Even if there is a supplementary clause in UN Resolution 1929 stating that sanctions will become ineffective, in practice, we will see that sanctions or restrictions will not be lifted all at once or simultaneously. In Emadi's view, the parliament is merely hoping to provide leverage to the Iranian team so they can utilize it, which is the parliament's wish in Iran. He noted that if the negotiating parties reach a nuclear agreement in the coming week or even days after, it will take time for some sanctions to be lifted or suspended. Initially, those sanctions that can be lifted immediately do not require groundwork, such as SWIFT sanctions and those related to money transfers between Iranian private sector entities. However, he reiterated that issues related to the Quds Force and Basij will not be included in the lifting of restrictions. Restrictions related to technology transfer, especially space and aerospace technology, will take more than a year to resolve. Even after a year, there will still be very direct and continuous oversight on these transactions and contracts. Matters related to the automotive industry will not take long, and we will see that the automotive industry will be able to conclude contracts related to joint investments, etc. However, it will not be possible to witness all of these being lifted at once and completely, not due to a lack of willingness from the 1+5 side but because lifting them requires time to convey the message that sanctions are no longer in place, to write instructions for the organizations overseeing the sanctions, and for the private sector, as banks and private companies will still be hesitant to contract with Iran for some time, meaning it will take time.