Updated at 13:45,15-04-2024

La Stampa: Tehran circumvents the sanctions with the help of Belarus

La Stampa

Iranian banks, which are under the Western sanctions, register their subsidiaries in Minsk.

Tehran, having found itself under the pressure of international economic sanctions, is trying to solve its financial problems by the means of changing the names of the banks, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reports.

“Iranian authorities are trying to use the not irreproachable Belarus’ banking system for creating new financial institutions, which can be in no way linked to Tehran”, - the article reads.

“Western intelligence services have found that the “Belarusian plan” has been worked out with the participation of Arselan Fathipur, the chairman of the economic commission of the Iranian parliament, and the advisors to the Supreme Spiritual leader Ali Khamenei. As the first step, the two Iranian banks that have subsidiaries in Belarus were charged with creating new financial institutions, based in Minsk, which would be impossible to track to Tehran. Both of these banks are subjects to international sanctions, the correspondent reports. The plan is to change the names of three subsidiaries of these banks, register them in Belarus and use them to circumvent the economic sanctions”, - the article’s author writes.

“In this way we can explain the decision of the Iranian Melli banks to operate in Russia via the Mir Business Bank, and the creation of a “two-nation” bank in Venezuela, which allows for carrying out large amount operations between the two allied countries”, - the author concludes.