Teheran (AsiaNews) - Since yesterday, Iran and South Korea have been trading using the euro as the common currency. In this way they are able to circumvent US sanctions that prohibit transactions in dollars with Tehran. Despite the United States approval, Seoul turns its currency into euro without any direct intervention of the dollar.
Iran's deputy foreign minister, Hamid Baedinejad, said that if other nations with local and limited currencies "used the Euro for transactions, this would facilitae trade" between the Iranian business and those countries”.
In July 2015, an agreement between Tehran and the major powers led to the fall of most sanctions against the country, in exchange for the freezing of the nuclear program.
Unfortunately, the United States has not lifted a major sanction not linked - according to Washington - to the nuclear package: the use of the dollar in international transactions. Thus, Iranian banks, businesses and students can neither pay nor get paid in international trade.
This fact made the agreement pointless for the Iranian people, opening the government to the criticism of the conservatives.
Last May, the Korean president Park Geun-Hye visited Iran agreeing to a volume of 18 billion dollars of trade between the two countries. Since then, three Korean banks, KEB Hana Bank, Shinhan Bank and Woori Bank have opened an office in Iran.
