The Obama administration, pushing to support international trade with Iran, has advised the country’s rulers not to worry about new U.S. legislation that clamps visa restrictions on people who have traveled to Iran.

Iranian officials have publicly complained the new U.S. rules will unfairly target travelers who visit Iran and could dampen investment interest in their country.
Secretary of State John Kerry wrote his Iranian counterpart on Saturday to assure him the visa changes approved by Congress last week won’t undermine business opportunities in Iran or violate the terms of the nuclear agreement between global powers and Tehran in July. Mr. Kerry said the administration was exploring ways to ensure visitors to Iran aren’t unfairly blocked from entering the U.S.

He specifically cited the State Department’s ability to expedite visa applications and to issue longer-term, multiple-entry travel documents. He also said the White House had the power to issue waivers to potentially exempt individuals from the new travel laws.

“I am also confident that the recent changes in visa requirements passed in Congress…will not in any way prevent us from meeting our” commitments under the nuclear deal, Mr. Kerry wrote. “We will implement them so as not to interfere with legitimate business interests in Iran.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in New York on Friday that the visa regulations could serve as a de facto new sanction on Iran, in violation of the nuclear deal. He also said Tehran could declare the visa rules a breach of that agreement.

“Now it is clear that this new legislation is simply absurd because no Iranian nor anybody who visited Iran had anything to do with the tragedies that have taken place in Paris or in San Bernardino or anywhere else,” Mr. Zarif told the Middle East-focused website Al Monitor on Friday.

On Sunday, Iranian state TV quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying the legislation contradicts the nuclear agreement.

“Definitely, this law adversely affects economic, cultural, scientific and tourism relations.""

Under the nuclear deal, the U.S. and European Union agreed to lift most sanctions on Iran in exchange for it significantly scaling back its nuclear infrastructure. U.S. officials said they believe Tehran could complete these steps by next month.

The U.S. Treasury Department has, subsequently, increased its consultations with international businesses, both inside the U.S. and out, to clarify what types of trade will become legal once the deal is implemented.

The U.S. will continue to block American firms from doing most types of business with Iran, except for the sale of airplane parts and the importing of Iranian carpets and some foodstuffs.

European and Asian firms will be allowed for the first time in a decade to conduct transactions with most Iranian banks and trade firms, according to U.S. officials. These foreign firms will face almost no restrictions on buying Iranian oil and gas.

“The U.S. will not stand in the way of business activities in Iran that are consistent with the [nuclear agreement],” the Treasury Department’s top sanctions official, acting Undersecretary Adam Szubin, said last week.

Some U.S. officials have said in private that they hope sanctions relief can give a boost to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate in Tehran’s Islamist political system. Iran is holding crucial national elections in late February. Politicians aligned with the president are expected to campaign on the success of the nuclear deal and the sanctions relief.

“It will certainly affect the political mood in Iran,” Mr. Zarif told the New Yorker magazine on Friday.

Congressional opposition to the Iran deal and the lifting of sanctions, however, remains stiff. A number of U.S. lawmakers, including Democrats and Republicans, have pressed the Obama administration to impose new sanctions on Iran in response to its launching of two ballistic missiles in the past two months.

(Source: The Wall Street Journal)