Moscow:

Iran-Russia banking ties not to be affected by US sanctions

TEHRAN (defapress) – US sanctions against the central bank of Iran will not affect Russian businesses in that country, Russian Special Presidential Representative for Afghanistan, head of the Asian department of Russia’s Foreign Ministry, Zamir Kabulov said on Friday.

News ID: 78760

Date: 21 September 2019 - 11:19

"It will not affect it, because we work without using US dollars and US channels," Kabulov added, TASS reported.

He noted that the US sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran and Iran’s National Development Fund will further complicate the situation in the Middle East.

"We can only regret this. Such a step, which is another tool of pressure on Iran, will not affect Tehran’s position, as we understand it. It only leads to further complication of relations between those countries and the situation in the region," Kabulov said.

The US Department of the Treasury announced on Friday that its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had taken action against the CBI, the National Development Fund of Iran (NDF), and Etemad Tejarate Pars Co. under its 'counterterrorism' authority.

It claimed that the CBI had provided billions of dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), its Quds Force and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

Later in the day, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reacted to the move, saying the United States' sanctions on CBI clearly shows Washington’s “desperate approach” toward the Islamic Republic.

“The Americans have imposed any sanctions they could on the Islamic Republic. What they are doing now is sanctioning an entity which has been sanctioned before under a different pretext,” he told reporters in New York.

“The new sanctions are aimed at blocking Iran’s international transactions and its access to food and medicine. This move is unacceptable and dangerous,” Zarif added.

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