TEHRAN – Iran is studying the possibility of establishing a joint mechanism with Russia and Turkey to escape US sanctions, similar to INSTEX prepared by the European Union (EU), Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Yavad Zarif said on Tuesday .

“A mechanism similar to INSTEX could be established with other countries, with stakeholders, in particular, with Russia and Turkey,” the diplomat said.

At the end of January, France, Germany and the United Kingdom announced the creation of INSTEX SA, a mechanism to maintain legal commercial transactions between European actors and Iran.

In August 2018, Washington reinstated sanctions against the Iranian auto industry, its gold and precious metals trade, as well as those related to the Iranian rial, and in November extended restrictive measures on the purchase of Iranian oil, operations with ports and companies and the transactions of financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran.

These are the restrictions that the United States had lifted in 2015 when the PAIC came into force, then signed by Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, and the European Union.

At the end of April this year, the White House reported that US President Donald Trump has ruled that he will not renew sanctions exceptions for any country currently importing Iranian oil when they expire.

The eight countries that received the US exemptions in November 2018 are China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey.

However, Greece, Italy and Taiwan no longer need exemptions because they have suspended their imports of Iranian oil, according to the press.

Following its withdrawal from PAIC in May 2018, Washington accused Tehran, among other things, of continuing to secretly develop a nuclear program despite the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 12 consecutive reports stating otherwise.

Iran remains a credible threat to Israel and it is for this reason that Washington has always opposed the Islamic Republic.