Angry Zarif to Meet Kerry: US must Implement Full Commitments

Local Editor
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged Washington to stop meddling in Iran's relations with other countries ahead of a meeting with his US counterpart.
Zarif is expected to meet John Kerry in New York on Tuesday before the US secretary of state flies to Saudi Arabia to join President Barack Obama at a summit with the Gulf Arab leaders.
The meeting follows complaints from top Iranian officials that the US is not fulfilling its part of a nuclear agreement reached in July.
Zarif said Monday he would urge Washington to "seriously" live up to its side of the deal and stop interfering in Iran's banking and financial ties with other states.
Iran's top diplomat is in New York to attend a UN debate on Sustainable Development Goals and attend the signing ceremony of the Paris climate change agreement.
Zarif said the visit is "a good opportunity to prevent groups hostile to Iran from implementing their Irano-phobic projects" after the nuclear deal.
"It is time to rebuild trust with the institutions which suffered losses from their links with Iran in the past. They have to be given assurances that they will not suffer from such links in the future."
The head of the Iranian diplomacy stated that there is no hurdle on the way of healthy economic ties between Iran and the US but Tehran does not have plans to forge such relations for now.
Ahead of his visit, Zarif revealed that he would ask the United States to ease restrictions on non-American banks doing business with the Islamic Republic.
"Iran will definitely put pressure on the United States to pave the way for the cooperation of non-American banks with Iran," he said on Saturday.
"The other party, particularly the United States, is required to implement its commitments in banking cooperation," he said at a Tehran news conference with visiting EU foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry clarified that Iran has so far seen only around $3 billion in previously frozen assets returned since it struck a nuclear deal with world powers.
"Remember the debate over how much money Iran was going to get?" he said to delegates at a dinner hosted by the progressive pro-Israel group J Street.
"We calculated it to be about $55 billion, when you really take a hard look at the economy and what is happening," he said, giving the usual State Department estimate.
In this context, Kerry added: "Guess what folks. You know how much they have received to date? As I stand here tonight, about $3 billion."
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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