Dec 25,2020:Iran’s central bank says it received backing from the US to transfer money to a Swiss account to pay for the vaccines.
Iran has secured an approval from the United States to transfer funds for coronavirus vaccines from overseas, the central bank chief has said, as its daily death toll fell to a three-month low.
Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said an Iranian bank had received backing from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to transfer the money to a Swiss bank to pay for the vaccines.
“They [Americans] have put sanctions on all our banks. They accepted this one case under the pressure of world public opinion,” Hemmati told state TV.
There was no immediate US reaction to Hemmati’s remarks.
Hemmati said Iran would pay nearly $244m for initial imports of 16.8 million doses of the vaccines from COVAX, a multiagency group dedicated to assuring fair access to vaccines for low- and middle-income countries.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said the US sanctions are preventing them from making payments to COVAX, to which some 190 economies have signed up.
Iran’s Shifa Pharmed began registering volunteers this week for human trials of the country’s first domestic COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Iranian media reported, as a factional dispute appeared to be brewing over the use of imports.
