Iran Says US Approved Its Funds Transfer to Buy COVID Vaccines

Iran has won US approval to transfer funds for coronavirus vaccines from overseas, the central bank chief said on Thursday, as its daily death toll fell to a three-month low.  Iran will purchase 16.8 million vaccine doses from the World Health Organization’s COVAX facility by transferring a 200 million euro (~US$244 million) payment through two unidentified European and Turkish banks and a domestic bank, central bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati told state television. He said the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control greenlit the transaction “under pressure from world public opinion.” He said an Iranian bank had received backing from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to transfer the money to a Swiss bank to pay for the vaccines.“They (Americans) have put sanctions on all our banks. They accepted this one case under the pressure of world public opinion,” Hemmati told state TV.

Iran has been trying to use its foreign currency reserves held abroad to pay for the vaccine via COVAX, but was told by countries including South Korea that the money risks being seized or blocked, Hemmati said earlier this month.

With around 1.2 million people infected and over 54,000 dead, Iran’s coronavirus outbreak is the worst in the region, and officials have previously said their ability to fight it is hampered by sanctions.
Iranian officials have said repeatedly that US sanctions are preventing them from making payments to COVAX, to which some 190 economies have signed up.

Iran’s Shifa Pharmed began registering volunteers this week for human trials of the country’s first domestic COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Iranian media reported, as a factional dispute appeared to be brewing over the use of imports.

Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV earlier that 152 people had died of COVID-19 in Iran in the past 24 hours, the lowest number since Sept. 18, taking total deaths to 54,308 in the worst-affected country in the Middle East.

On Wednesday, President Hassan Rohani said Iran is on par with other countries in combating the coronavirus pandemic, giving an assurance that his administration has made arrangements to obtain reliable vaccines from abroad and develop a homegrown vaccine for the disease as well. “We have gone ahead on par with the world and been even better than some countries in the fight against the virus,” he added. The president also assured the people of Iran that the Central Bank and the Health Ministry have been doing their utmost and made arrangements to provide the society with a reliable foreign vaccine and develop a homegrown one.

The fall in deaths comes after more than a month of night traffic curfews and other restrictions in major cities. Police said 96,000 fines were issued nationwide on Wednesday for drivers breaking the curfew. Officials have cautioned that the danger of a resurgence in infections looms large.

US President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers in 2018 and imposed new sanctions on the country. President-elect Joe Biden’s coming to power has raised the possibility that Washington could rejoin the agreement. - Bloomberg, Reuters, Mehr