Iranian Foreign Ministry: EU unable to replace SWIFT

Baku. 14 January. REPORT.AZ/ EU lacks necessary infrastructure to launch a mechanism designed to replace the SWIFT system to circumvent the US sanctions against Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Bahram Ghasemi said, Report informs citing Tasnim.

"We believe that the Europeans would like to complete the work over mechanism but this process took too long to proceed. Europe demonstrated that it lacks necessary infrastructure in the quantity that would be enough to launch this financial channel," Ghasemi said.

He believes that the United States continues pressure on the EU.

"We are certainly discontented and we reminded the Europeans that we continue working on alternative directions. It take them too long to work on the mechanism and we see their inability to settle the issue," he said.

It became known in November 2018 that Iran and EU are working on an interbanking communication channel (SPV) to circumvent the US sanctions on Iran. By available information, Germany and France can register the SPV mechanism in their territory. The Iranian side repeatedly stated that it hopes to launch the SWIFT analogue by the early 2019, but the system did not work by the indicated time.