Boeing gets license to export aircraft parts to Iran

Boeing Co. said it has received U.S. government approval to export certain spare parts for commercial airplanes to Iran.

A company spokesman, Marc Birtel, said Boeing's last delivery to Iran was a 747-100 jumbo jet in August 1979 — three months before American hostages were seized at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

The spokesman said Friday that the parts it now plans to export are needed to ensure safe flight. He declined to describe them further or to put a dollar value on them.

Birtel said Boeing received a license from the U.S. Treasury Department to export the spare parts under a temporary agreement that Secretary of State John Kerry reached with the Iranians late last year.

Officials at the Treasury Department, which oversees sanctions against Iran, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The United States and other countries recently reached an interim agreement in which Iran agreed to halt progress on its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of international sanctions that have squeezed its economy. Iran got access to parts for civilian aircraft and cars, medical supplies and other goods, senior U.S. officials said in January. The deal is set to run six months while both sides negotiate a permanent agreement.

President Barack Obama has warned that if companies try to do business with Iran in violation of sanctions, the U.S. would come down on them "like a ton of bricks."

The Associated Press