Obama to veto bill to block Iran plane sales

The US administration says President Barack Obama is set to veto an upcoming legislation to block sales of passenger planes to Iran on the grounds that it would breach a landmark nuclear agreement sealed with the country last year. 

Reuters has in a report quoted the White House as announcing that US partners view the legislation, if implemented, as a violation of the nuclear agreement.   

The House of Representatives is expected to take up, and pass, the measure as soon as this week. However, it is not expected to get through the Senate, where it would need Democratic support to advance, the report added.

The measure would bar the Secretary of the Treasury from authorizing a transaction by a US financial institution related to the export, or re-export, of commercial aircraft to Iran. And it would revoke any authorities enacted before the bill passed, such as those that allowed the Boeing and Airbus sales, it noted.

It would also limit the role of Export-Import Bank financing of sales to Iran.

This is already viewed as the latest Republican-led effort to stop the sale of aircraft to Iran by Airbus and Boeing Co, allowed under the nuclear deal.

Iran sealed a nuclear agreement with the P5+1 – the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany – last summer. Based on the agreement, Iran agreed to restrict certain aspects of its nuclear energy activities in return for measures by the P5+1 to remove a series of economic sanctions against the country. 

Boeing received a Treasury license to sell 80 planes to Iran, under a memo signed in June. Yet, it is still negotiating sales to the country’s national airline Iran Air.

Boeing’s European rival Airbus also announced in September that it had received the Treasury Department’s approval to sell aircraft to Iran.