Today (Wednesday 9 December 2020) Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani, has stated U.S. sanctions are inhibiting Iran’s ability to purchase medicine and other crucial health supplies, including COVID-19 vaccines.
Under the Trump administration, the United States has pursued a tactic of ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. Now the most heavily sanctioned country in the world, Iran’s economy has been left in disarray, further exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
The sanctions regime began following the United States withdrawal from the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal and is aimed at restraining Iran’s nuclear programme. Crippling sanctions have been imposed on Iran’s banking sector and its oil and gas industry, yet Tehran’s nuclear programme continues to steadily expand.
In theory, medicines and humanitarian goods are exempt from sanctions. However, the widespread restrictions on trade have had knock-on effects and many banks and companies de facto avoid business with Iran for fear of being hit by punitive measures from Washington.
In addition, Iran has been cut off from the international banking system, which makes it difficult to transfer payments.
President Rouhani was quoted as saying:
“Our people should know that for any action we plan to carry out for importing medicine, vaccines and equipment, we should curse Trump a hundred times,”
Adding that even simple transactions to purchase medicines had become extremely difficult, with it taking “weeks” to transfer funds.
Iran has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with over a million confirmed cases and 50,000 deaths. In October 2020, Iranian state television reported that one person was dying from COVID-19 every three minutes.
Some experts have also questioned the accuracy of Iran’s official coronavirus toll. In April, a report by the Iranian parliament’s research centre suggested that the real figure of cases might be almost twice as many as those announced by the health ministry.
Iranian authorities have been reluctant to impose the sort of stringent lockdown measures seen elsewhere, partly owing to the fact that they’re already suffering from a dire economic crisis. The sanctions have contributed to a plunge in the country’s currency in recent years that has caused the price of basic goods to soar and wiped out many Iranians’ life savings.
Today (9 December 2020), UK parliamentarians will discuss the UK government’s policy on Iran in a Westminster Hall debate. Part of this debate will undoubtedly focus on Iran’s continued use of hostage diplomacy – the arbitrary detention of dual and foreign nationals for use as bargaining chips in their foreign policy pursuits.
Despite both sides denying any connection, it is generally accepted that the fate of British nationals detained in Iran is intrinsically connected to a historic £400 million debt owed to Iran by the British government.
In November 2020, speaking in a debate on the detention of British national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the UK Minister for for the Middle East, James Cleverly MP said:
“We recognise that the debt is due, and we are working to resolve this. It is a 40-year-old debt, and we are exploring options to bring this to a conclusion.”
Typically, the UK’s Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have been at odds over this debt. The MoD has consistently blocked efforts to repay this debt, arguing that it is not prepared to give the money to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and their military pursuits in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.
The current state of affairs in Iran presents the UK with a unique opportunity, through the provision of humanitarian goods and COVID-19 vaccinations, to repay this historic debt in a safe and secure manner.
If the Minister for the Middle East is genuinely “exploring options to bring this to a conclusion”, then it should surely consider a policy in which the UK government repays its debt through aid in return for the immediate and unconditional release of British nationals detained in Iran, and ideally all other dual and foreign nationals.
This was an approach advocated for by Patick Wintour, diplomatic editor of the Guardian, in a recent International Observatory of Human Rights seminar, who said:
“Why are we still in court arguing about the sum of money? To whom it could be paid? Are we making an effort to find a humanitarian route to pay this money or not and what is wrong with finding a humanitarian route?”
Later adding:
“I don’t think there is any harm in them [the UK government] saying we are looking at paying this £400 million pound debt through humanitarian aid and saying so specifically if they’re doing that. If the Iranians say back to the UK: No, we want the money in cash and we want it to go to the ministry of defence, then have that argument with the Iranians in public…are they really going to tell their public they’re going to turn down £400 million in drugs, aid and medicines at this point of crisis…By us being open I think you’ll unlock some of this dreadful dreadful stalemate.”
Director of the International Observatory for Human Rights, Valerie Peay also suggested exploring such an approach, saying:
“Perhaps it’s time that the UK reached out with humanitarian aid to help fight the coronavirus in Iran instead of bargaining people’s lives for £400m in old debt. We need to bring these hostages home now and if we can help alleviate the suffering of the Iranian people, rather than lining the pockets of those in power who seek to extort financial gain from imprisoning the innocent, then let’s choose action over stalemate.”
Watch the International Observatory of Human Rights webinar Iran ‘Hostage Diplomacy’: What Next? here: