Kenneth Katzman made the remarks in the Atlantic Council meeting regarding 'The complexities of unraveling US sanctions and returning to the JCPOA'.
Katzman said the main thing that should be discussed is that economic institutions have been recognized as terrorist bodies.
Saying that it was important to restrict Iran’s nuclear capabilities, he added that most of the Iranian organizations should be removed from the terrorism list.
He also said that Iranian money out of the country has reached 80 or 90 billion dollars, seven billions of which is blocked in South Korea and has become source of disagreement between Tehran and Seoul.
Iran should be able to move money from its accounts out of Iran, he said, and added that Iran will want removing all the sanctions imposed on its central bank, and oil and petrochemical exports.
The US should exempt some countries from the sanctions and let them buy Iranian oil.
Iran wanted to withdraw the money from South Korean banks to purchase medical equipment and COVID-19 vaccine; so the US permitted that, but Iran did not want the money to go through the American banking system, because it was thought that the money might get confisctated by Trump’s administration.
He also said that the exemption of Iraq can go on and the country can continue to buy gas and power from Iran.
Referring to Iran’s request for a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he said Trump administration blocked the loan. Iran said needed the money to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even INSTEX did only one transaction, and then it stopped, he said, adding Joe Biden's administration can easily change its policies and support the mechanism – even before removing the sanctions – so that Iran will be able to buy its necessary medical equipment.
So there are some steps that the US should take to show that it intends to rejoin the JCPOA.
9417**2050
Follow us on Twitter @IrnaEnglish