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End to Sanctions on Iranian Rugs Sparks Joy Among City's Dealers

By Noah Hurowitz | February 11, 2016 11:49am
 Darius Nemati, pictured here in his old showroom in Manhattan, said the lifting of a ban on Iranian Persian rugs will be a lifeline for the industry.
Darius Nemati, pictured here in his old showroom in Manhattan, said the lifting of a ban on Iranian Persian rugs will be a lifeline for the industry.
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DNAinfo/Heather Holland

NEW YORK CITY — In showrooms and warehouses across New York, dealers in Persian rugs watched negotiations over last year's nuclear deal with Iran closely, excited at the prospect that the lifting of sanctions against Iran could mean a lucrative lifeline for their businesses.

So after the deal was finalized and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency lifted the ban late last month on importing and exporting oriental rugs originating in Iran, many dealers breathed a sigh of relief, according to Darius Nemati, who for the past two years has operated his rug business Nemati Collection out of Long Island City after decades in Manhattan.

Nemati and other rug dealers have been fleeing the once-flourishing "Rug District" in Manhattan in droves in recent years. 

Nemati said the availability of Persian rugs from Iran will not save the Rug District. But for those still holding on there, or for those like Nemati that have moved out of Manhattan, the chance to sell Persian rugs originating in the birthplace of the trade will boost business, he said.

“This is a great thing for the country’s rug dealers,” he said. “There is so much negative publicity against Iran and Iranians that people have adverse reactions to the name, but there is no way anyone will be hurt by this.”

See also: Midtown's Rug District Disappears as Dealers Flee Sky-High Rents
►See Also: City Greenlights Demolition of Former Rug Showroom Building on Fifth Avenue

In addition to freezing the import of rugs directly from Iran, the ban also extended to Iranian rugs already in the collections of dealers in the United States and Europe. That meant a freeze on trade between dealers and customers who had no direct connection to Iran, Nemati said.

The ban forced Nemati and his colleagues dealing internationally to only import and export rugs made in India, Pakistan and elsewhere — fine pieces, he stressed, but lacking the originality that attracts some collectors to rugs of Iranian extraction.

“I had some pieces in Europe that I had to keep there for years,” he said. “It will be a good thing being able to ship them all over the world again.”

The United States originally banned the import and export of Iranian Persian rugs in 1987 as part of a larger sanctions package against the government in Tehran. During a relative thaw in relations between the two countries authorities lifted the ban in 2000, but the hammer came back down in 2010 in an effort to discourage Tehran from pursuing its nuclear program.

Nemati questioned the effectiveness with which the rug sanction pressured the Iranian government. Like many dealers in the rug trade, Nemati is Jewish-Iranian, exiled after the Islamic Republic took over in 1979, and he is no fan of the regime in Tehran, he said. So to punish exiles like him and working-class artisans in Iran made little sense, he said.

“If I felt even one dollar of my business was helping the regime, I would never import rugs from Iran,” he said. “But we’re working with people we know there. These are families, similar people to us, who are just looking to earn a little money.”