Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 23
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
There are still important differences between Iran and the USA, however Tehran and Washington make efforts to deal with them using diplomacy and interaction, US State Department official Alan Eyre told Trend.
Eyre, the US State Department's Persian Language spokesperson said Washington and its allies will take measures to prevent Iran from destabilizing the region.
However now with involving Iran in Syrian peace talks there will be more interaction rather than confrontation, and now there is a chance to reach a peaceful solution to end Syrian crisis, Eyre said.
For the first time in Mid-November 2015, Tehran, the main regional ally of President Bashar al-Assad, attended an international summit in Vienna discussing solutions to put an end to the five-year long crisis in Syria. At least two summits have been hold since then and another one is expected to take place in late January.
Speaking about some Arab states' concern over unblocking of Iran's frozen assets in international banks, following the removal of international sanctions on the country, Alan Eyre said that the reality should be accepted - that there is a possibility that Iran may use part of unblocked assets to destabilize the region.
However, if we had not solved the nuclear issue, Iran could have been armed with a nuclear weapon which could worsen the situation in the region, he added.
In a joint statement on Jan. 16, the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced the implementation of Iran's nuclear deal with the P5+1, and the removal of economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
The statement said the EU confirms that the legal framework, providing for lifting of its nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions, is effective. Following the removal of sanctions Iran's frozen assets in international banks have been released.
There were speculations that the value of the country's assets frozen in overseas banks amount to above $100 billion, meanwhile Iranian officials have repeatedly rejected these huge figures.