French carmaker Renault will maintain its presence in Iran while taking measures to avoid the risk of penalties for breaching renewed U.S. sanctions, its CEO Carlos Ghosn said Friday, according to AFP.
"We will not abandon it, even if we have to downsize very strongly," he said at the annual shareholders' meeting in Paris.
"When the market reopens, the fact of having stayed will certainly give us an advantage," added Ghosn.
U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last month and announced he would reimpose sanctions on Iran.
As a result of Trump’s move, international companies doing business there will face penalties if they do not quit the country in between 90 and 180 days.
Companies including aircraft maker Boeing, French energy giant Total and Danish shipping group Maersk have announced plans to pull out, while Nike has stopped supplying Iran's football team with boots.
Renault's rival PSA, which produces the Peugeot and Citroen brands, has also announced it will quit Iran to abide by the U.S. sanctions.
But Ghosn signalled that Renault, which counted 160,000 cars sold in Iran last year out of its total 3.76 million, would try to stay in the country.
"We have a future in Iran," he insisted, according to AFP.
"However, we are not going to do so to the detriment of Renault's interests -- we will be watching closely to make sure our presence in Iran does not provoke direct or indirect reprisal measures on the part of American authorities."
Ghosn said a Renault team working on the issue was "in direct contact with the American administration to work out what can be done and what cannot be done."
The European Union, unlike Trump, said it would remain in the agreement and will do so “as long as Iran continues to implement its nuclear related commitments, as it is doing so far.”
Tehran has demanded that Europe come up with an economic package to offset the effects of the U.S. withdrawal.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned world powers this week that it was impossible for Tehran to stay in the nuclear deal if it cannot benefit from it after the U.S. withdrawal.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)