Top Iranian Banker Threatens End of Nuke Deal if U.S. Doesn’t Make Concessions

The governor of Iran’s central bank warned that if the United States doesn’t facilitate Iran’s reintegration into the international financial system, the nuclear deal will “[break] up under its own terms,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Valiollah Seif made his remarks in a 90-minute presentation in Washington, which this week hosted meetings by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

While the nuclear deal unfroze tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues, the Islamic Republic says that it hasn’t seen the financial benefit it expected to receive. U.S. prohibitions on Iranian access to the American financial system or the dollar has made it difficult for Iran “to process international money transfers and finance trade freely,” since the implementation of deal began in January, the Journal reported.

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Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a conference call last week that giving Iran even temporary access to the dollar to facilitate trade would erode what little leverage the U.S. still has.

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Read the full article here.