Former World Leaders Urge Trump to Ease Medical Sanctions on Iran

The call has the backing of 24 senior diplomats and defense officials including former EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, former director-general of the World Health Organization Gro Harlem Brundtland, and senior American diplomats in the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations, according to the Guardian on Monday.

Signatories also include the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former US defense secretaries William Cohen and Chuck Hagel, former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Hans Blix, former US treasury secretary Paul O’Neill, the former US lead diplomat on the Iran deal, William Burns, and former NATO secretary-general George Robertson.

The group said in a statement that the move to ease the restrictions “could potentially save the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians and, by helping to curb the virus’s rapid spread across borders, the lives of its neighbors, Europeans, Americans and others”.

The group added, “Reaching across borders to save lives is imperative for our own security and must override political differences among governments”.

The statement also said, “…US ‘maximum pressure’ through sanctions on Iran are compromising the performance of the Iranian healthcare system as Iran’s outbreak moves into its second month. Despite humanitarian exemptions provided under US and international law, these sanctions make the importation of medicine, medical equipment and raw materials needed to produce these goods domestically slower, more expensive, and complicated.”

The US state department claims medical trade is not blocked by US sanctions, but the group of former leaders said they have identified a series of barriers that make medical trade near impossible. The steps they recommend include expanding the scope of humanitarian exemptions under US sanctions specifically to include devices and equipment necessary to effectively combat Covid-19, providing extra resources to the US treasury to process sanctions-waiver requests, and sending general US treasury comfort letters to European banks, shipping firms and insurers.

The signatories urged Trump not to use America’s voting rights on the IMF board to disrupt an Iranian request for a $5bn(£4bn) IMF loan, and to issue a statement supporting the use of INSTEX, the mechanism created by the UK, France and Germany in 2019 to allow European companies to trade with Iran without exposing themselves to the consequences of US sanctions.

The group further warned of “significant and long-lasting consequences for the reputation of the United States and Europe among the Iranian people” if Trump does not ease the sanctions. “This would starkly raise the political costs of engaging with either the US or Europe for any current or future Iranian decision-makers, while simultaneously boosting the influence of Iran’s non-western partners”.

The United States reinstated its sanctions against Iran in May 2018 after leaving a United Nations-endorsed nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic and five other major powers -- the UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany.

Iran has been among the countries hardest hit by the new coronavirus, which first showed up in China in late December 2019 before spreading to other parts of the world.

Iran’s Health Ministry spokesman announced on Monday that more than 24,000 coronavirus patients have recovered from the disease so far and have been discharged from hospital.

Kianoosh Jahanpoor said the number of people tested positive for COVID-19 across the country has reached 60,500 following the detection of 2,274 new cases since yesterday.