Iran demands “unpaid” debt from five countries
Published: Tuesday, August 12, 2008
INTERNATIONAL – DEBTS – IRAN
00:28GMT—8:28PM/EST
Washington, 11 August (IranVNC)—Iran announced yesterday that it has begun an effort to collect “unpaid debt” that the countries of Sudan, Tanzania, Nicaragua, Jordan and North Korea owe to it.
The official IRNA news agency quotes an unidentified “senior government official” as saying that these efforts “are directed at implementing a law passed by the Majlis [parliament].”
“Some of the unpaid debts [of these five countries] are incurred prior to the Islamic Revolution and some were incurred after the Revolution,” he added.
Iran’s Majlis recently passed a law requiring the government to demand its unpaid debts from these five countries. According to the law, “the ministries of oil, economy, foreign affairs and defense” are permitted to enter negotiations with these countries to recover the debts.
The amount of debt these five nations owe to Iran has not been publically announced.
Jordan and Sudan owed debts to Iran prior to the 1979 Revolution, when both countries had bilateral relations with Iran. After the Revolution, Sudan’s debt increased when it received several shipments of oil from Iran and when it bought military equipment and services from Iran between 1991 and 1993.
Prior to the Revolution, Jordan received four loans from Iran, which have yet to be repaid.
In 1983 and between 1984 and 1986 Iran sent several oil shipments to Nicaragua and Tanzania respectively.
Source: Islamic Republic News Agency
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(Original article written in Persian.)