Hamid Baeedinejad, the director general of Political and International Affairs Department of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, announced the new procedure citing the ability of Indian companies to convert a sum of USD750 million into euro to be paid to Iran through a Turkish bank as an indication.
He has further emphasized that Iran will continue efforts to lift all restrictions on financial transactions that still remain in place.
Reports earlier said India’s Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited had transferred USD500 million in payment of its debts for Iranian oil. Another sum of USD250 million has also been transferred by Indian Oil Corp. After conversion in euro, the money is to be credited to the account of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) with Turkey’s Halkbank, the media have reported.
The payment through Turkey’s Halkbank was the first since the lifting of Western sanctions against the Islamic Republic in February.
Indian companies continued to import Iranian oil after sanctions were imposed on Iran in 2012. They paid 45 percent of their oil imports in rupee but could not execute payment in US dollars. Over these years, the Indian oil debt has reached USD6.5 billion.
Several European banks including the Danske bank of Denmark, Europaeisch-Iranische Handelsbank (EIH) of Germany, Central Bank of Italy and Halkbank of Turkey had already been designated to carry out the related transactions.