Any restriction on giving banking services to Iranians is forbidden

EghtesadOnline: Imposing any limitation on giving banking services to the Iranians on the pretext of sanctions is forbidden, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Valiollah Seif said.

News ID: ۷۳۶۶۲۲

05 September 2016

In a message to the managing directors of the Iranian banks and financial institutes, Seif told them that any action to impose limitation on giving banking services to the Iranian people or organizations or cut those services on the pretext of the US and the European Union (EU) sanctions against Iran is 'illegal', reports IRNA.

Those limitations have not been mentioned in the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or other international regulations to which Iran is committed, Seif added.

Iran and the six world powers- the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany reached a nuclear deal on July 14, 2015. In January, 2016, 'Implementation Day' of the JCPOA was announced and anti-Iran sanctions were lifted.

After lifting of the anti-Iran sanctions, most of the Iranian people and organizations that had been on the sanctions list were excluded from that list, Seif said.

The exclusion does mean that foreign companies, banks and financial institutes, regardless of any limitation, can have trade and financial cooperation with those Iranian nationals who had been on that list before, Seif said.

So, they (foreign companies) will not be imposed or punished by the US and the EU if they have exchanges with Iran, Seif added.

He further stressed that Iran still believes the action of not excluding the names of some of the remaining Iranian persons and bodies from the sanctions list is unjust.

Iran has declared its objection to the issue through a letter to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the letter has been registered as an official document while the UNSC simultaneously approved the 2231 Resolution.

'Resolution 2231 (2015) heralded a fundamental shift in Iran’s relationship with the Security Council, and provided a defined time schedule for the removal of the Iran nuclear issue from the Council’s agenda,' the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in July.

The CBI chief said that Iran's legal stance has constantly stressed and will stress that 'all sanctions imposed by any sources against Iranian people and organizations are illegitimate and the Islamic Republic of Iran has never recognized those sanctions.'