Zarif Warns EU of Other Powers' Sabotage Acts against Cooperation with Iran

Rasa - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned the EU not to be influenced by other countries' attempts to prevent cooperation with Tehran.

News ID: 424409

Date: 18 October 2016 - 23:52

RNA - "The EU cooperation with Iran shouldn’t be influenced by the moves of other countries and powers," Zarif said in a meeting with European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Elżbieta Bieńkowska in Tehran on Tuesday.

He also referred to the various fields of cooperation between the Iranian and EU private and governmental sectors, and said, "Obstacles to the expansion of ties between the two sides should be obviated and the EU's role in using the atmosphere after the removal sanctions is highly important."

Bieńkowska, for her part, underlined increasing cooperation between the EU and Iran in different fields, and said, "We are after long-term partnership in cooperation with Iran and I believe that the grounds for the materialization of this partnership should be paved as soon as possible."

The comments came after Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Valiollah Seif once again lashed out at Washington for not complying with its undertakings under the last year nuclear deal with Tehran.

"The status quo is not desirable compared with the expectations before the nuclear deal," Seif said on Saturday.

Noting that the European countries and their banks are interested in cooperation with Iran, he said "but the US has not completely implemented the undertakings that it has accepted under the nuclear deal" and the European banks are lagging in improving relations with their Iranian counterparts given the concerns they have about the US behavior in future.

Seif asked the US to give necessary assurances to the European banks to develop relations with their Iranian counterparts.

Also, earlier this month, Seif lambasted the US for troubling improvement of the relations between the Iranian and European banks in opposition to Washington's undertakings under the last year nuclear deal between Tehran and the world powers.

"Unfortunately, after 9 months of implementation of the nuclear deal, the western side has not taken any effective step to comply with its undertakings, and in certain cases, the large western banks have shown some doubts in the establishment of brokering ties with Iran. This is while it has always been announced that Iran has fulfilled all its undertakings," Seif said in a meeting with German Deputy Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries in Tehran.

He described the US as one of the most important impediments to the normalization of relations between the Iranian and European banks, and said, "I believe that ties between Iran and Europe are normalizing and returning to the past levels, but there still remains certain concerns which have been caused mostly by the US and place hurdles on the way of bilateral ties."

"We expect the European countries to pressure the US to comply with its undertakings," Seif said.

His remarks came after Zarif underlined that his country will show proper reaction to the US violation of its undertakings under the last year nuclear deal with Tehran.

"We will resist against the US non-compliance and we don’t tolerate it and we will confront the Americans' violation of the nuclear deal," Zarif said early October.

Also, German Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy Sigmar Gabriel called on Washington to settle its internal problems and differences to fully implement the nuclear deal signed last year with Iran.

"The US should manage its affairs so that the results of the nuclear agreement would be materialized for Iran and its people," Gabriel said in a joint trade meeting with Iranian officials at Iran's Chamber of Commerce in Tehran early this month.

He stressed the German companies' enthusiasm for developing their activities in Iran, and said, "Now, they consider Iran as their home."

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