IranAir took delivery of five more ATR turboprop aircraft only a day before the return of US illegal sanctions that have already torpedoed Iran’s plane purchases with other major providers. The planes that had left France’s Toulouse earlier in the day landed in Tehran’s International Mehrabad Airport on August 5, Sunday morning, after a short stop for refueling in the northwestern city of Urmia.

IranAir signed last year a contract to buy 20 ATR 72-600 aircraft, joint-owned by France-based Airbus and Leonardo of Italy, worth $576 million.

ATR – which had delivered 8 planes to Iran under the deal and started building another 12 – has been lobbying the US Treasury to allow it to take advantage of the normal wind-down period for Iran business by giving it temporary new licenses.

Airbus said last month it would not attempt to deliver any more planes to Iran in the wind-down period. It has delivered just three of 100 ordered by IranAir.

Boeing, which had sold 80 jets to IranAir under the 2015 nuclear deal, does not plan any deliveries.

According to Iran Civil Aviation Organization, the National Airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran – Iran Air – will receive five new ATR planes tomorrow, as part of the 20 ATR 72-600s which IranAir signed with the Franco-Italian aircraft manufacturer in 2017.

The five ATR planes will land at Tehran Mehrabad International Airport at 9 a.m. on Sunday, according to the report.

On Wednesday, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he was “hopeful” that ATR would get permission from the US to deliver eight regional planes to Iran before August 6, when sanctions against Tehran would return.

Deliveries of turboprop aircraft were halted in May after US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and reinstated sanctions against Iran, which prevent planemakers whose aircraft contain more than 10% US-made components to export planes to Iran.

Iran received the first four ATR aircraft last May, two more in September, and another two in December. With the five more planes to be received on Sunday, ATR will have fulfilled the delivery of 13 out of the 20 planes under the contract.

According to Reuters, ATR Chief Executive Christian Scherer has been in talks with the US Treasury, urging the Trump administration to unblock the export of about six regional planes to Iran before the August deadline when the US sanctions will be reinstated against Iran.

Deliveries of ATR turboprops to Iran were halted in May after the US withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal and the US Treasury said it would revoke export licenses.

Scherer told Reuters ATR would argue that it had sold aircraft “in good faith” under US government licenses and that blocking the rest of the deal would cause ATR “serious damage”.

After the signing of the JCPOA, IranAir ordered 200 aircraft, 20 of which were to be delivered by ATR. The company, co-owned by Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo, has so far delivered eight turboprops to IranAir, and the rest 6-8 aircraft, according to Scherer, would be ready for delivery by the August deadline.

According to ainonline, ATR, Franco-Italian passenger aircraft manufacturer, confirmed that it has applied for a new export license from the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to allow it to deliver the final 12 ATR 72s of an order for 20 of the 70-seat turboprops placed in 2016 by Iran Air.

Following the unilateral withdrawal of US, under the Trump administration, from the nuclear agreement of July 14, 2015, OFAC revoked ATR’s previous license that bars further delivery of commercial airplanes to Iran.

The new sanctions, to be imposed by November, effectively reverse the Obama Administration’s January 2016 settlement with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which lifted earlier sanctions barring the sale of commercial airplanes containing a given proportion of US-made content to Iran in return for the Islamic Republic’s agreement to curb its nuclear program.

The new sanctions also prevent Airbus, ATR, and Boeing from selling parts and providing support for the airplanes already delivered. All contain more than the proportion allowed under US Commerce Department-established Export Administration Regulations (EAR) for sale to Iran. According to current regulations, an item made outside the US that incorporates controlled US-origin content exceeding the applicable de minimis percentage for a particular country stands subject to those regulations. The de minimis proportion generally amounts to 25 percent, but the percentage lowers to 10 percent when applied to Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.

Airbus, which sold a mix of 98 A320-family, A330, and A350 XWB jets to Iran Air in December 2016, delivered its first A321 in January last year. As of this May, Airbus delivered another six A320s and two leased A330-200s. Boeing, for its part, inked a “definitive agreement” covering fifty 737 Max 8s, fifteen 777-300ERs, and fifteen 777-9s valued at $16.6 billion at list prices with Iran Air in December 2016, and another for 30 Max narrowbodies four months later. Although it too secured an OFAC license to start deliveries, it never converted the agreements to firm orders as questions persisted over whether the Trump Administration would exercise its right to amend, modify, or revoke the license.