Aviation Official: Iran to Buy 100 Boeing Airliners

DUBAI (Reuters) —
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to film or take pictures in Tehran.FILE PHOTO: A IranAir Boeing 747SP aircraft is pictured before leaving Tehran's Mehrabad airport September 19, 2011. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl/File photo
A IranAir Boeing 747SP aircraft is pictured before leaving Tehran’s Mehrabad airport. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl/File photo)

Iran has reached an agreement with U.S. planemaker Boeing to buy 100 planes, and the two sides are awaiting approval by U.S. Treasury authorities, the head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation said in remarks published by a state-run Iranian newspaper on Sunday.

“Of the 250 (passenger) planes in Iran, 230 have to be replaces,” Ali Abedzadeh told the daily Iran, adding that a written agreement had been signed with Boeing to buy 100 aircraft.

So far, Boeing has only been granted permission to present its products to IranAir and a handful of other airlines as it tries to catch up with Europe’s Airbus, which earlier this year won a provisional deal for 118 jets worth $27 billion.

Reuters reported on June 6 that Iran was edging towards a historic deal to buy jetliners from Boeing for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and that a deal for more than 100 aircraft could be reached fairly soon.

Last week, Israeli legal advocates threatened to sue Boeing if it attempts to sell planes to Iran before the Islamic Republic has paid billions in compensation to terror victims in line with U.S. court rulings.

The NGO Shurat Hadin, which represents hundreds of families of terror victims of Iran, contends that Iran must pay off the court-awarded sums before it can purchase the planes.

Shurat HaDin warned Boeing that the nuclear deal the U.S. signed with Iran, which lifted some sanctions, did not nullify the claims made by the terror victims. Those judgments entitle them to place liens on anything Iran purchases, according to Shurat HaDin director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner:

“It is shocking that a company like Boeing would enter into a business deal with the outlaw regime in Tehran,” she said.

 

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