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Japan, France offer revised loan to Iran of $18.4bn to stay in JCPOA
iran
JAPAN and France have proposed a plan to provide Iran with a loan of 2tn Japanese yen ($18.4bn) if Tehran returns to full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA), Japan’s Mainichi reported on October 20.
As part of the revised offer initially proposed by France with uS agreement, loan guarantees will be provided in exchange for Iranian oil exports of a value equivalent to the allocated amount used to purchase food and medicine.
France previously proposed a similar plan of assistance to Iran for the amount of $15bn, but the Iranian side demanded an increase in the size of the letter of credit in order to compensate for the losses from tougher sanctions, the newspa- per said.
As a result, Japan decided to support the initi- ative of the French government and allocate the necessary additional funds.
Tokyo said it believed that such a position could contribute to the start of negotiations
between Iran and Washington on the issue of a nuclear deal.
In addition, Japan may soon send two ships of the country’s self-defence forces to the Strait of Hormuz to escort vessels.
The financial support, in this case, is designed to smooth out the possible adverse reaction of Iran to these actions.
On May 8, Iranian President Hassan Rou- hani announced that Tehran was suspending part of the obligations of the nuclear deal and giving other participants 60 days to return to its implementation.
On July 7, Tehran proceeded to the second stage of the suspension (announced that it would enrich uranium over 3.67%) and promised to reduce obligations every 60 days if other partici- pants did not adhere to the agreements reached.
On September 6, Iran embarked on a third phase to reduce obligations under a nuclear deal and abandoned restrictions on research activities.™
PriCes
Date
WTI (US$)
ICE Brent (US$)
DME Oman (US$)
OPEC Basket (US$)
15 October
52.88
58.74
60.10
59.62
16 October
53.45
59.42
60.55
59.28
17 October
54.03
59.91
60.99
59.54
18 October
53.87
59.42
60.35
60.06
21 October
53.85
58.86
59.90
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Week 42 22•October•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P11