Iran’s Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian says he has reached an agreement with the Iraqi government authorities on how Iranian funds blocked in a commercial bank in the Arab country could be used by Tehran for purchase of COVID-19 vaccines from a European manufacturer.
While visiting the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Tuesday, Ardakanian said that Iraqi authorities had also agreed to pay overdue debts to the National Iranian Gas Company and Iran’s state electricity company Tavanir.
Ardakanian told the official IRNA news agency that Iran and Iraq had agreed on “new mechanisms” to speed up the release of Iranian funds that have been blocked in Iraq because of American sanctions.
He said as part of the new agreements, Iran’s health ministry would be able to pay for coronavirus vaccines that are planned to be purchased from a major European pharmaceutical company.
Iran aims to take delivery of nearly 42 million doses of coronavirus vaccines from abroad to immunize high-risk groups of the population against the disease while the public will receive jabs being developed inside the country.
The Iranian minister's comments came a day after the NIGC said that it had significantly reduced natural gas supplies to Iraq over arrears of more than $6 billion.
The NIGC said that that the Iraqi government had ignored its repeated warnings about the arrears, which include $3 billion blocked in the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI) as well as overdue debts and fines.
Iraq’s electricity ministry said on Tuesday that it will resume taking delivery of normal Iranian gas supplies as of Wednesday after an agreement was reached over unpaid bills between electricity minister Majid Mahdi and Iran’s Ardakanian.
Ardakanian’s Tuesday trip to Baghdad, his second in 2020, saw him meeting senior Iraqi officials including Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi.
The minister said that he had also reached agreements with the Iraqi side on the increased presence of the Iranian engineering and constructions companies in the Arab country’s electricity sector.