Iran Receives Four Used Airbus Planes Despite Sanctions

Strasbourg — Iran has received four used passenger planes to replace aircraft in its ageing fleet despite the sanctions in place, Iran's aviation authority confirmed on Friday."The four Airbus 340 aircraft have arrived in the country and will soon be used in civil aviation," an authority spokesperson told Khabar-Online news site. He did not say how Iran was able to acquire the four planes despite the sanctions. According to media reports, the planes are said to have been retired from Turkish Airlines in 2019 and subsequently parked at Johannesburg airport in South Africa by the new owner company. Turkish Airlines initially did not comment. All four aircraft with registration plates from Burkina Faso took off from Johannesburg last week, media reports said. Officially, they were supposed to fly to an airport in Uzbekistan but landed in Tehran.The spokesperson for the Iranian aviation authority admitted that the sanctions had made it extremely difficult for Iran to buy new passenger planes. That means the country had to "drive with its lights off" in this regard, he said, using a term in Farsi for transactions that are not carried out properly.The West imposed renewed sanctions on the Iranian leadership following the brutal crackdown on widespread anti-government protests that began in September.

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