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US Offers Familiar Carrot For Iran Nuclear Compromise

Iran has suffered a series of horrific crashes of old planes in recent years. Barbara Slavin writes that spare parts have been a perennial US offer to induce Iran to change its ways. While it's theoretically possible for Iran to buy spare aircraft parts directly from US firms, Iran faces nearly insurmountable hurdles in obtaining the parts.
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.

The wreckage of the Iranian Boeing 727 airplane is pictured after it crashed near Urumiyeh in East Azermaijan province about 946 km (588 miles) northwest of Tehran January 9, 2011. At least 70 people were killed and 35 injured when an Iranian Boeing 727 passenger plane crashed in bad weather in northwestern Iran on Sunday, the head of the Iranian Red Crescen

When the United States and its negotiating partners offered last month to sell spare aircraft parts to Iran in return for nuclear concessions, they were dangling a carrot almost as old as much of Iran’s civilian airline fleet.

Spare parts have been a perennial US offer to induce Iran to change its ways — or to reward it for positive steps — and were almost provided 20 years ago near the end of the George H.W. Bush administration, Al-Monitor has learned.

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