Khamenei: The U.S. Creates Iranophobia to Prevent Deals with Iran

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, stated on Wednesday morning, April 8, during a speech to a group of workers, that Americans are obstructing Iran's dealings with other countries by creating Iranophobia. According to Khamenei's official website, he described Americans as unreliable and claimed that by continuing various sanctions against Iran and fostering Iranophobia, they practically prevent the establishment of economic relations between Iran and other countries. This statement comes in the context of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's remarks on April 4 during a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart in the U.S., where he stated that Washington would not obstruct financial and economic transactions of global banks with Iran. He assured that no company or bank should fear dealing with Iran, despite the fact that American banks themselves are prohibited from any transactions with Iran or vice versa. Abbas Araqchi, the Deputy for Legal and International Affairs at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, also mentioned that the dollar sanctions are 'both Iran's demand and the Americans' demand' and emphasized that the Islamic Republic has 'no desire to use the American banking system.' For several months, some Iranian officials, including Mohammad Javad Zarif, have indicated that financial institutions and banks remain confused about transactions with Iran. At the end of Bahman, following Hassan Rouhani's visit to France and the signing of several trade agreements, one of the Airbus executives urged European and French banks to overcome their fears and begin transactions with Iran. Now, the Iranian leader claims that the U.S. has blocked these transactions through Iranophobia. Khamenei had previously stated on April 24 that the U.S. is not committed to the nuclear agreement and intimidates countries intending to cooperate with Iran, noting that the results of European governments and companies' visits and negotiations with Iran have been negligible so far. Many European companies need financial support and loans from financial institutions to conduct trade and exports to Iran, while Iran also requires support from these companies for certain activities, such as purchasing oil tankers, which it desperately needs, and the ability to transact in dollars. In the months following the sanctions, Iran has been receiving its oil revenues in euros rather than dollars. The fear of banks regarding transactions with Iran was also mentioned by Valiollah Seif, the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, on May 5, who stated that only large banks fear dealing with Iran due to heavy penalties previously paid, while medium and small banks have no issues with Iran. During the years of sanctions, large banks such as BNP Paribas (France) and ING (Netherlands) were forced to pay unprecedented heavy fines. BNP was accused of paying nearly $9 billion two summers ago, the largest fine ever paid to the U.S. Department of Justice. HSBC (UK) also paid $1.3 billion in fines for trading with a country like Iran. ING (Netherlands) paid nearly $620,000 in penalties. Other banks fined by the U.S. for trading with Iran include Credit Suisse ($536 million), TSB ($350 million), Barclays ($298 million), and Standard Chartered ($227 million). According to Mr. Seif, these figures may indicate the banks' fear of dealing with Iran.