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VIENNA, July 30-- The European Union(EU)-initiated payment system with Iran has seen the completion of its first transactions and is expected to be officially launched after related procedures are aligned, a Russian official said after a joint commission of the Iranian nuclear deal meeting in Vienna on Sunday. The system, formally known as the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), "is operating in a pilot mode. In order to make it operate in full mode some bureaucratic procedures between the INSTEX and the Iranian structure similar to INSTEX need to be finished," Russia Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was quoted by Sputnik news agency as saying. It was announced in January that the INSTEX, the European Union (EU)'s payment system to facilitate trade with Iran to get around U.S. sanctions, would secure trade with Iran and skirt U.S. anti-Iran sanctions after Washington pulled out of the 2017 landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018. Following a meeting of the joint commission of the Iranian nuclear deal in June, the mechanism became operational and available to all EU member states. Tehran wants to bring its oil exports back to the level before the United States' withdrawal from the landmark deal, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abbas Mousavi said on Monday. "Our demand is to (allow Iran to) sell oil as it used to be before the US pullout from the nuclear agreement," Mousavi said, commenting on the situation around Europe's INSTEX trade mechanism, as quoted by the IRNA news agency. | 
