Azerbaijan, Baku, March 30 /Trend S.Isayev, D. Khatinoglu/
Some businesses and companies do not understand how sanctions imposed against Iran work, the U.S. Department of State spokesman on Iran, Alan Eyre told Trend during an online press conference.
"We try to be aware of the complexity of these sanctions, however some companies do not do legitimate business because they don't understand how the sanctions work. And our job is to explain them how they can do business legitimately," Eyre said, speaking of the sanctions imposed on Iranian banks and legal entities.
The sanctions on Iran include a European oil embargo, exclusion from the SWIFT international banking system that enables Iranian banks to transfer money, and US measures that target Iran's central bank.
In December 2012, the EU imposed new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear energy program, which include blacklisting an individual and a group of companies.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the EU imposed new sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
Eyre admitted that there are unintended consequences of sanctions, and the U.S. tries to bring them down to the lowest level.
"We stay in touch with other Banks, when the money transfers from bank to bank is taking place," Eyre said. "We are also in close contact with international companies. When they have a problem regarding the sanctions, we help them out."
Alan Eyre participated in an online q&a session today with several journalists, answering questions about Iran, country's nuclear program, economic sanctions and other issues.