EU exports to Iran are on the rise after a three-year decline despite the sanctions imposed on Tehran by the UN over its peaceful nuclear program.

The EU bloc’s exports to Iran rose by $6.93 billion in the first five months of this year, an increase of 17.8 percent, Reuters reported, citing figures from the EU’s statistics office Eurostat.
The highest increase was in the export of machinery and other manufactured goods along with vehicles. Countries who played a role in this increase were Germany, Italy and France.
This is while an official from the EU said that the figures seemed to show Iran’s ability to use its oil revenues resulting from the rising world oil prices, to buy goods with cash in spite of restrictions imposed upon it by some European governments.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel advised German companies on Wednesday to show sensitivity in their dealings with Iran.
Merkel’s remarks came after Israel criticized a gas plant deal between a German firm and Iran. The German government however hopes to persuade energy firm Steiner Gastec Prematechnik to cancel a 100 million euro deal with Iran’s national gas carrier. Diplomatic sources in al-Quds (Jerusalem) said that once news of the deal became public knowledge, the Zionist regime’s ambassador to Berlin contacted a representative of Merkel’s office to ask for her intervention in the matter.
Only last week, Germany’s export control office said it had concluded that plans by Steiner-Prematechnik to build equipment for converting natural gas to a liquid do not violate sanctions against Iran.
That cleared the way for the deal - a move that the Zionist regime’s Foreign Ministry criticized as being “opposed to the spirit of the sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council against Iran.”
The U.S. and its allies are at loggerheads with Iran over the country’s nuclear drive. While the West accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons, Tehran maintains that its nuclear activities are solely aimed at peaceful purposes.
(Source: Press TV)