Boeing, GE get licence to sell spare parts to Iran

Companies say US Treasury approved application under temporary relief deal.

PARIS/ WASHINGTON:

Boeing Co, the world’s biggest airplane maker, and engine manufacturer General Electric Co said they had received licences from the US Treasury Department to export certain spare parts for commercial aircraft to Iran under a temporary sanctions relief deal that began in January.

GE spokesman Rick Kennedy said the Treasury had approved the company’s application to service 18 engines sold to Iran in the late 1970s. They will be serviced at facilities owned by GE or Germany’s MTU Aero Engines, which is licenced to do the work. He said GE officials would meet with officials from Iran flag carrier Iranair and MTU in Istanbul next week to discuss Iran’s needs.

A Boeing spokesman said his company received the licence this week and would now contact officials in Iran to determine which parts were needed. He said the licence covered only components needed to ensure continued safe flight operations of older Boeing planes sold to

Iran before the 1979 revolution, and did not allow any discussions about sales of new aircraft to Iran.

“It’s very limited,” said the spokesman. The sales would be the first acknowledged dealings between US aerospace companies and Iran since the 1979 US hostage crisis led to US sanctions that were later broadened during the dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities.

Reuters reported in February that both Boeing and GE had applied for permission to export aircraft parts to Iran during a six-month window agreed by Iran and six world powers in November.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2014.

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