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Iran says U.S. approved its funds transfer to buy COVID vaccines

25 December 2020 03:48 (UTC +04:00)

Iran has won U.S. approval to transfer funds for coronavirus vaccines from overseas, the central bank chief said on Thursday, as its daily death toll fell to a three-month low, APA reports quoting Reuters.

Central Bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said an Iranian bank had received backing from the U.S. 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 U.S. reaction to Hemmati’s remarks.

Hemmati said Iran would pay around $244 million for initial imports of 16.8 million doses of vaccines from COVAX, a multi-agency group dedicated to assuring fair access to vaccines for low- and middle-income countries.