Sanction-less Rouhani announces new plane plans

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is indicating his country may soon be able to buy badly needed new planes for its aging fleet after the nuclear deal, the official IRNA news agency reports.

Hassan Rouhani says Iranian negotiators came away from the talks in Vienna with “achievements beyond the nuclear” agreement and succeeded in having “aviation sanctions removed.”

International and specifically US sanctions have prohibited the sale of Western planes and some spare parts to Iran, making it impossible for Iran to buy new planes and difficult to keep the aging Boeings and Airbuses it does use safely flying.

The last time Iran bought new aircraft directly from a Western company was in the early 1990s from the Dutch manufacturer Fokker, which later went bankrupt.

Beyond referring to the removal of “aviation sanctions,” Rouhani does not elaborate but Iran’s Transportation Minister Abbas Akhoundi has said there have been talks with Boeing and Airbus and that initial agreements will likely come in a few months’ time.

Last month at the Paris Air Show, Akhoundi said Iran was prepared to spend about $20 billion to purchase about 400 new planes over the next decade.