Iran Withdraws Request to Withdraw Funds from German Bank

German media reports that Iran has withdrawn its request to withdraw 300 million euros (347 million dollars) in cash from its bank account at a bank based in Hamburg, Germany. Several media outlets in Germany reported on Tuesday, September 4, that Iranian officials contacted the German financial market supervisory authority (BaFin) to cancel the request for the withdrawal of funds from Iran's account at the 'European-Iranian Trade Bank' known as Eihbank. The Associated Press reports that it has not yet been able to obtain further information from BaFin regarding this matter. The German newspaper Bild previously reported, citing several government officials, that Iranian officials had made the withdrawal request due to concerns about the potential blocking of access to these funds following the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions. According to the newspaper, Iranian officials stated that they needed this money to provide currency for Iranian travelers abroad. Earlier, Mohammad Dehghan, a member of the Legal and Judicial Commission of the Parliament, had reported the seizure and blocking of part of Iran's foreign assets in Germany, but shortly after, Bahram Qasemi, the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, denied this and said that the economic relations between the two countries were proceeding normally. The United States, which has re-imposed strict sanctions on Iran with the aim of 'changing the behavior' of the Islamic Republic, requested German officials to prevent the transfer of money after Tehran's request to withdraw this amount from Eihbank. In this context, Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, stated on July 9 in an interview with the widely circulated Bild newspaper that the U.S. government is 'deeply concerned' about the transfer of this money to Iran and added that 'we encourage the highest levels of the German government to intervene in this matter and stop this program.' The German Ministry of Finance announced on the same day that it is 'reviewing' Iran's request. Meanwhile, the American newspaper Wall Street Journal reported on August 3 that Richard Grenell's pressures in Berlin have been effective, and the German Central Bank is set to add an anti-money laundering amendment to German financial laws that could complicate or prevent the transfer of money to Iran. U.S. sanctions pressure has led various European companies and institutions, including the German state railway company and the German automaker Daimler, to announce their exit from the Iranian business market in recent weeks. Previously, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, wrote on his Twitter page one day after issuing the executive order for the first round of sanctions that 'anyone who does business with Iran will not do business with the United States.'