For business with Iran, don’t use US as excuse: Kerry

US Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States should not be used as an excuse by “businesses” not to work with Iran.

Tehran blames Washington for promoting reluctance in US and European businesses so as not to deal with Iran for fear of getting tangled in a thicket of US regulations months after sanctions were lifted following a nuclear agreement with world powers.

Ahead of a meeting with European banks in London, Secretary Kerry shrugged off the US role on Tuesday, yet making a compromising statement in support of business with Iran.

"Businesses should not use the United States as an excuse if they don't want to do business, or if they don't see a good business deal ... that's just not fair, that's not accurate," Kerry told reporters. "We sometimes get used as an excuse in this process.”

Kerry is set to meet with representatives from European banks, including Britain’s Barclays, HSBC, and Standard Chartered on Thursday to discuss conducting business with Iran, according to Reuters.

Iran’s financial relations with other countries are improving thanks to the removal of sanctions after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, reached between Tehran and the world powers.

Iran and the P5+1 - the United States, Britain, Russia, China, France, and Germany - finalized the text of the JCPOA in Vienna on July 14, 2015.

On January 16, US President Barack Obama signed an executive order lifting US economic sanctions on Iran after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that Tehran has implemented its commitments made in JCPOA.

Iran, however, has not been allowed to gain access to the US financial system, for which it “never asked,” according to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

“What we asked was to implement the nuclear deal, which requires the United States to allow European financial institutions to have peace of mind for dealing with Iran,” Zarif said in an interview with The New York Times in April.

Upon his arrival in London, Kerry also asserted that European banks are free to deal with Iran.

"It's important to have clarity and the clarity is that European banks, as long as it's not a designated entity, are absolutely free to open accounts for Iran, trade, exchange money, facilitate a legitimate business agreement, bankroll it, lend money - all those things are absolutely open," Kerry said.

Kerry noted last month that Washington did not oppose to foreign banks’ transactions with Tehran in line with the JCPOA.

The secretary of state is among other Obama administration officials under pressure from the anti-Iran Republican Party, which is in control of the Congress, over efforts to negotiate a nuclear deal with Tehran.

The US has already fined some of the largest international banks for trading with Iran.

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