Iranian officials are pushing Washington to do more to fulfill its obligations under the nuclear deal. U.S. officials must be “much more proactive” in assuring other countries that they can do business with Iran without risking penalties from the United States, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told The New York Times on April 20.
My meeting with @JZarif in NYC today was a good opportunity to discuss our commitments to JCPOA obligations. pic.twitter.com/qCjZkpCwrz
— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) April 19, 2016
On April 19, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Secretary of State John Kerry met in New York to discuss implementation of the deal. The two met for more than two and a half hours behind closed doors. Afterwards, Zarif told reporters they focused on how “to make sure that we will draw the benefits that Iran is entitled to.” A reporter asked Kerry if he reached an agreement on the issue. Kerry responded:
“We agreed to – we’re both working at making sure that the JCPOA, the Iran agreement – nuclear agreement – is implemented in exactly the way that it was meant to be and that all the parties to that agreement get the benefits that they are supposed to get out of the agreement. So we worked on a number of key things today, achieved progress on it, and we agreed to meet on Friday. After the signing of the climate change agreement, we will meet again to sort of solidify what we talked about today.”
On the same day, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) introduced legislation to prevent the Obama administration from allowing access to transactions involving the U.S. dollar as long as continues to engage in illicit activities, including developing ballistic missiles and supporting terror. It was the fourth bill targeting dollar transactions introduced in April.
Zarif has said that Iran has not specifically asked for access to the U.S. financial system. But Valiollah Seif, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, has said that it might be necessary to make the implement the nuclear deal. “Almost nothing” has happened since the nuclear deal was implemented in January, he said at the Council on Foreign Relations on April 15. “Unless serious efforts are made by our partners to make the JCPOA work, in my view they have not honored their obligations… If it means more face to face contacts with the international banks assuring them they do not penalize them working in Iran, if it means making changes to their laws and regulations to give access to the U.S. financial systems, allow U Turn, what ever is needed, they need to do that; otherwise the JCPOA breaks up under its own terms.”
Kerry’s meeting with Zarif follows the first bilateral with U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Seif, which opened a new channel for U.S.-Iran interaction. Kerry and Zarif forged a close working relationship during 18 months of difficult negotiations that resulted in a final nuclear deal in July 2015. Direct communications between the counterparts has become routine and helped ensure the quick release of U.S. sailors in January 2016.