No problem for foreign banks doing business with Iran, official says
By Aynur Karimova
An Iranian official has said that foreign banks have no problems for dealing with Tehran.
While speaking to the state TV, the Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs of the country, Abbas Araqchi said on April 24 that Iranian diplomats should not be worry about their remarks abroad when they are addressing Iran's foreign partners.
Iranian top nuclear negotiator referred to the recent remarks made by President of Central Bank of Iran Valiollah Seif, who blamed Washington for continuing pressures against Iranian banks. Araqci said this blaming was a right action, IRNA reported.
Iran's diplomacy for removal of sanctions has been successful and the U.S. high-ranking officials have underlined that there is no obstacle on the ways of reviving ties between non-American banks and their Iranian partners.
Also, many of European banks have not transited from the period of sanctions to the post-deal era and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation has a duty to convince the European banks to revive their ties with Iran.
Araqci, saying that Iran has still some problem for transfer of its released assets as well as the oil revenues to the country, urged the U.S. officials to facilitate the issue.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Secretary, John Kerry said earlier that Washington is not opposed to foreign banks doing business with Iran following Tehran's compliance with a historic nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group of countries.
"The U.S. is not standing in the way, and will not stand in the way of business that is permitted in Iran since the nuclear agreement took effect. I want to emphasize we lifted our nuclear-related sanctions as we committed to do," Kerry told reporters, sitting alongside his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in a New York hotel on April 22.
"There are now opportunities for foreign banks to do business in Iran. Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion among some foreign banks and we want to try and clarify that as much as we can," he added.
Zarif welcomed Kerry's statement, expressing hope that it would bring Iran's rights under the JCPOA.
"We hope that the statement made today by Secretary Kerry will begin to open the difficult path that had been closed because of concerns that banks had about the U.S. approach toward implementation of the commitments under the JCPOA," he said.
The U.S., UK, France, China, Russia and Germany reached the nuke deal-the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in July 2015 in the Austrian capital Vienna. The agreement went into effect on January 16, 2016.
Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to put some restrictions on its nuclear energy program in exchange for relief from international economic sanctions.
Iran has repeatedly criticized the U.S. for refusing to grant it access to the global financial system. Tehran says such access is one of the goals of the nuclear deal, and has urged Washington to stop preventing non-American banks from dealing with Iran.
On April 21, Zarif told reporters at the end of special meeting of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York that Iran does not recognize the verdict of the U.S. Supreme Court against Tehran.
"The U.S. government knows well that any attempt concerning Iran's assets will make that country in the position of accountability vis-à-vis the Iranian nation and obliging that country to return those assets to the Iranian nation," he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court on April 20 ruled that almost $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets should be turned over to American families of people killed in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in the Lebanese capital of Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran.
The assets belong to the Central Bank of Iran, which has been blocked under the U.S. sanctions.
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Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter @Aynur_Karimova
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