NEW YORK -- The United States won't stand in the way of foreign business deals with nonsanctioned Iranian firms, Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.
He also said President Barack Obama's administration is willing to further clarify what transactions are permitted with Iran since last year's nuclear deal.
Speaking at a meeting with Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Kerry said the confusion about the new rules was impeding Iran's ability to benefit from the nuclear deal, including gaining access to formerly frozen funds held by foreign banks.
Iran has complained that it hasn't yet realized the full benefits of the deal signed last summer by the United States, Iran and five other countries. Zarif said he hoped Kerry's comments would begin to open a different path.
The United States also announced Friday that it is buying 32 metric tons of Iranian heavy water, a key component for one kind of nuclear reactor, to help Iran meet the terms of the nuclear deal, under which it agreed to curb its atomic program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.
The State and Energy departments said a sales agreement would be signed in Vienna by officials from the six countries that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran. The agreement calls for the Energy Department's Isotope Program to purchase the heavy water from a subsidiary of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, for about $8.6 million, officials said. They said the heavy water will be stored at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and then resold on the commercial market for research purposes.
Heavy water, formed with a hydrogen isotope, is not radioactive but has research and medical applications and can also be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Under the nuclear deal, Iran is allowed to use heavy water in its modified Arak nuclear reactor, but must sell any excess supply of both heavy water and enriched uranium on the international market.
Iranian news agencies reported in early March that a deal would be finalized soon. Members of Congress on Friday criticized the deal as another example of the Obama administration giving Iran more than it is entitled to.
The Energy Department said the heavy water purchase does not go beyond the scope of the nuclear agreement and stressed that future purchases were not automatic.
"The United States will not be Iran's customer forever," it said in a statement. "It is exclusively Iran's responsibility to find a way to meet its [nuclear deal] commitments, whether that is by selling, diluting or disposing of future stocks of heavy water to remain within the [deal's] limit."
That did not sway congressional Republicans.
"Once again, the Obama administration is handing Iran's radical regime more cash," said U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "U.S. purchase of this sensitive material goes well beyond what is required by the nuclear agreement. Far from curbing its nuclear program, this encourages Iran to produce more heavy water to sell -- with a stamp of U.S. approval -- on the international market.
"If President Obama won't rule out new concessions to the Iranian regime, Congress should," Royce added. "Iran's supreme leader must not be allowed to seek 'death to America' with U.S. dollars in his pocket."
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the heavy water purchase sets a "dangerous precedent."
On Thursday, the office of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., posted on the speaker's blog that Kerry had "left the door ajar, if not completely wide open," to giving Iran "an unprecedented economic windfall" during talks with his Iranian counterpart this week.
Seeking to quell the debate, administration officials have been insisting that Iran will not get access to U.S. dollars.
The nuclear deal rolled back European restrictions on doing business with Iran faster than U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic, but Iran is finding it difficult to take advantage of those new trade partnerships because so much of the global market is dominated by U.S. dollar transactions. Many international banks fear running afoul of U.S. sanctions still in place over Iran's non-nuclear activity.
Democrats in Congress are taking the administration at their word that it has no intention of letting Iran access dollars.
"I haven't seen any reason to believe there is a concern here," Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Ben Cardin, D-Md., said Thursday. Though he opposed the nuclear deal, he stressed that his chief interest now is keeping it intact.
But congressional Republicans are skeptical, signaling they believe the administration's explanations could just cover for a sleight of financial hand instead.
"We cannot grant Iran access to the U.S. dollar in any form," McCarthy said this week. "Iran shouldn't get relief simply because they agreed in word to a flawed nuclear deal."
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee of The Associated Press and by Karoun Demirjian of The Washington Post.
A Section on 04/23/2016