Swiss Companies Welcome Humanitarian Channel for Medicine and Food Shipments to Iran
Brian Hook, U.S. State Department Special Representative for Iran, says Washington is in negotiations with at least two other companies that have expressed interest in sending food and medicine through a humanitarian channel established in Switzerland.
Reuters news agency, citing Iran’s special representative at the U.S. State Department, reports the willingness of companies based in Switzerland to participate in a channel for sending humanitarian items to Iran. The humanitarian channel, called SHTA, which will be overseen by the U.S. Treasury Department, began operations on January 30, 2020, in Switzerland to export medicines and medical equipment, agricultural and food items exempt from U.S. sanctions to Iran.
Authorization for the first shipment of medicines, including cancer treatment drugs and medications needed for organ transplantation valued at $2.55 million, was issued on January 27.
Brian Hook told reporters on Thursday, February 20 (Esfand 1) that more and more companies in Switzerland are showing interest in this channel. However, he provided no further details and did not mention any company names. Under the SHTA mechanism, companies based in Switzerland have a guaranteed banking channel to receive export proceeds.
BCP Bank, based in Geneva, and pharmaceutical manufacturer Novartis were the initiators of this new mechanism.
Brian Hook announced the willingness of more companies to participate in this mechanism while Abbas Mousavi, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, stated that his country does not recognize anything called a humanitarian channel or similar: “We do not recognize sanctions. Medicines and food should never have been sanctioned in the first place for them to create a channel for it. We believe the Americans have extended their unjust sanctions even to medicines.”
Abdolnasser Hemmati, Governor of Iran’s Central Bank, after the Swiss Ambassador in Tehran reported the import of 180,000 packages of organ transplant medicine to Iran, stated that the total drug imports to the country were 2,000 times that amount and called the channel a “pharmaceutical show.”
He said on February 5: “The very announcement of authorization by America for the import of medicines and medical equipment shows that despite America’s claim that medicines and humanitarian items are not sanctioned, these items are actually sanctioned by America in practice, otherwise there would be no need for authorization.”
Source: DW
