Iran says purchases from Boeing ‘easier’

Iran says it expects the proceedings to purchase planes from US aviation giant Boeing to proceed faster than that with Airbus.

“Negotiations with Boeing started much longer [after Airbus] but it appears they will lead to success sooner,” said Asghar Fakhriyeh Kashan, Deputy Minister of roads and transportation. 

“This is because the structure of negotiations with Boeing is different from that of Airbus”.  

Fakhriyeh Kashan further said that Boeing has sent the text of its contract to Iran to be studied by the related authorities.  

He added that top officials from the company will visit Tehran next week to push talks toward the finalization of the contract.   

On a related front, Boeing announced on Wednesday that the US Treasury Department had issued the required authorization to the company to sell 80 planes from a total package of 109 planes to the Islamic Republic.  

Airbus also confirmed on the same day that it had it received a license for an initial sale of 17 planes. 

Back in January, Tehran signed a major contract with Airbus to buy 118 planes. The accord was inked during President Hassan Rouhani's visit to Paris.

However, Fakhrieh Kashan said earlier this week the country had cut the number of planes to be purchased to 112. 

The change was seen to have been adopted to expedite the process for Airbus to receive export approvals from the US Treasury Department.  

Iran had previously voiced concern at the amount of time it was taking to receive US export licenses.

SS