DM: US, Allies in Rift over Iran after Geneva Deal

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said the Geneva agreement between Tehran and the world powers has created a deep gap in the so-called international consensus created and led by Washington against Iran.
“Concurrently with the Geneva negotiations and the initial agreement, a flood of governments and companies have come to us (offering us) to start cooperation and rapidly move ahead, and this means a serious gap in the US-made global consensus against Iran,” Dehqan said in Tehran on Tuesday.

He also referred to the nuclear issue and the recent negotiations between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) in Geneva in late November, and said, “What is important to us (and was stressed in the negotiations) is maintaining the nuclear fuel cycle and enrichment completely within our country’s geography relying on the domestic know-how.”

Iran and the G5+1 reached a final deal on November 24 after days of difficult and intensive negotiations and a decade-long nuclear standoff.

The deal includes removal of a part of the US-led West’s sanctions Iran’s crude supplies, petrochemical exports and part of the banking operations, including the pay-back of Iran’s crude export revenues.

According to the deal, no further sanctions will be imposed against Iran. Iran’s crude sales will be maintained at the current level and Iran’s oil revenues will also be released.

Sanctions on Iran’s petrochemical sector will be completely removed and the sanctions on the country’s auto industry will also be lifted.

Sanctions on imports and exports of gold and precious metals, as well as the ban on the insurance of transportation and shipping services will be fully lifted as well.

After the agreement, Iran’s Deputy Oil Minister Kazzem Vaziri-Hamaneh underlined in November that the removal of the western sanctions against Tehran after the Geneva nuclear agreement will pave the way for the return of giant oil firms to Iran.

“Giant international firms are perceived to return to Iran’s oil and gas industries upon the complete removal of sanctions,” Vaziri-Hamaneh told reporters in Tehran.

“Certainly, the annulment of sanctions will facilitate and accelerate exports operations and supply of Iranian oil to the global market,” he added.

Also, earlier this month, the Auto Industry International Conference, in a final statement, called for facilitated regulations for the investment of foreign companies in Iran.

Participants in the conference, a majority of them from the private sector, in a statement called on Iran’s new government to prepare appropriate conditions for foreign investment, saying facilitating investment laws and regulations in Iran is among the most important parameters for the development of auto and spare parts industries.

A preliminary agreement last month between Iran and the six world powers in Geneva allowed for the lifting of some sanctions on the Iranian auto industry.

Iran’s auto market as the world’s sixth developing market has attracted the interest of many accredited international auto-makers and parts-makers in resuming their operations in Iran as the potential demand for 1.5 million cars has made inevitable the need for improving the quantity and quality of products as well as diversifying the products in Iran, the statement said.