TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran has the ability to design and manufacture spare parts for Boeing and Airbus planes, said deputy roads and urban development minister.

Ali Abedzadeh, who is also the head of the Iran Civil Aviation Organization (CAO), added, “Specialized Iranian experts have achieved good success in repairing engines and have been able to overhaul the hot and complicated section of the engines through applying appropriate technologies,” Fars News Agency wrote.

He noted that Boeing and Airbus refrain from repairing the damaged parts of the planes that are in Iran, making the country move toward developing the needed technologies domestically.

“We have developed the capability to design these parts and can manufacture them. Of course, they have an identity and are based on standards,” Abedzadeh said.

The official added the US had piled “huge pressure” on plane manufacturers to avoid providing Iran with the technical and operational information needed for repairing and overhauling its aircraft.

The comments come as Iran has managed to get around a series of American sanctions that sought to ground its aviation sector through the imposition of harsh penalties on countries and organizations that provide services to the Iranian airlines.

Those pressures even intensified during the spread of the new coronavirus pandemic in Iran when some European governments refrained for a while from allowing flights by Iranian airlines, meant to evacuate nationals from Europe, to land.

Earlier, Abedzadeh said Iran would soon lift its own pandemic-related ban on international flights, adding foreign carriers would start their flights to Iran in the very near future.

An Iranian aviation official announced in 2016 that Airbus and Boeing had granted permission to Iran for conducting the maintenance and repair operations and producing spare parts.

Maqsoud As’adi Samani, a member of the Iranian Aviation Companies Association, added, “Airbus and Boeing have given the Iranian aviation industry the right to carry out plane maintenance and repair operations as well as manufacture spare parts.”