Obama Grants Kerry Authority to Issue License for Aircraft Sales to Iran

Reports indicate that Barack Obama, the President of the United States, has granted his Secretary of State the authority to issue a license for the sale of passenger aircraft to Iran as part of further actions to lift sanctions following the implementation of the JCPOA. According to USA Today, on Saturday, January 16, Obama, in an order delegating his powers regarding the lifting of sanctions to John Kerry, has allowed him to grant this license for the sale of aircraft to Iran. ISNA news agency also reports that Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, who is currently in Vienna with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Foreign Minister, and a delegation to participate in the official ceremony announcing the implementation of the JCPOA, jokingly told reporters upon arrival in the city, 'Today we are returning to Tehran with a new airplane.' The U.S. prohibited the sale of passenger aircraft to Iran after the hostage crisis involving its diplomats in Tehran in 1979. Iranian officials have stated that although the aircraft sales sanctions are not related to the oil and banking sanctions concerning Iran's nuclear program, the U.S. agreed to lift the ban on aircraft sales to Iran during the nuclear negotiations. USA Today emphasized that under the nuclear agreement, U.S. sanctions against Iran related to 'human rights violations and support for terrorism' and most of the U.S. trade sanctions against Iran remain in effect, but in the nuclear agreement, two cases, the sale of passenger aircraft to Iran and the sale of specific Iranian goods, especially carpets and kilims to the U.S., are exempt from sanctions. According to this report, the U.S. Congress granted Obama the authority to issue goods, services, or technology to Iran in 2010, provided that it 'serves national interests.' Meanwhile, Mehrdad Bavaj Lahouti, a member of the Parliament's Civil Commission, told Fars News Agency that there are currently one hundred grounded aircraft in the country's passenger fleet. He also quoted the Minister of Roads as saying that the national airline fleet currently needs five hundred aircraft.