US warns France against business with Iran after trade trip to Tehran

Renault Asia's chief, Gilles Normand: the carmaker has resumed shipments of parts to Iran. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

The US has warned France against doing business with Iran after a large trade delegation representing more than 100 French companies travelled to Tehran this week.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, called the French foreign secretary, Laurent Fabius, to say the visit was "not helpful" in backing up America's preferred message to Tehran: that while sanctions have been eased, they have not been dropped, and "it is not business as usual", a US official said.

"Secretary Kerry has talked directly to Foreign Minister Fabius about the trade delegation … about how this is not helpful," the under-secretary of state for political affairs Wendy Sherman told US lawmakers in Washington.

"Tehran is not open for business because our sanctions relief is quite temporary, quite limited and quite targeted," she said.

Last month, Iran and six world powers including France and the US made the first step in implementing the historic nuclear deal struck in Geneva in November. As part of the agreement, Tehran agreed to roll back its nuclear programme and accept more scrutiny of its activities, in exchange for partial relief from sanctions.

As Iranian scientists halted all enrichment of uranium to 20% inside the country, the EU reciprocated by announcing moves to ease restrictions on trade in petrochemicals, precious metals and the provision of insurance for oil shipments. This week, the US released $550m to Iran, the first instalment in $4.2bn worth of frozen oil revenues which the Islamic republic is expected to receive over a period of time as part of the Geneva deal.

Despite these developments, the US has warned France that it will seek fines against any country – ally or not – that breaks the US and EU sanctions.

The 116-strong French business delegation represented many major French international companies, including Total, Peugeot, Citroën, Lafarge, GDF Suez and Alstom. There was even a representative from the football club AJ Auxerre, offering French savoir-faire over the training of players.

Thierry Courtaigne, vice-president of the French employers' organisation Medef, said the delegation, which arrived in Tehran on Monday, wanted to assess the commercial opportunities there.

The French finance minister, Pierre Moscovici, said at the weekend that France would have "significant commercial opportunities" in Iran if sanctions were lifted.

Moscovici said the visit was intended to "convey the message that, if the situation improves, there will be significant commercial opportunities for France in Iran".

Iranian leaders gave the French delegation a warm welcome, promising new measures to encourage foreign investment, particularly in oil and gas.

Iranian newspapers have given the French visit significant coverage during the past week. "Tehran's lucrative offer to Paris," read the Tuesday headline of the reformist daily Shargh.

According to Shargh, Mohammad-Reza Najafimanesh, of the Iranian auto parts manufacturer association, said the visit showed French investors and businessmen were opposed to the French government's record of a harsh approach to sanctions.

Mohammad Nahavandian, the head of the Iranian president's office, said Tehran's relations with the international community had been upgraded to a "win-win" situation. "It's a reasonable decision on their part to become a partner of a strong economy [like Iran]," he said. "There's a unique opportunity."

As the EU relaxed punitive measures on Iran as a result of the interim deal, Renault said last week it had resumed exports of spare parts to Iran and that it was hoping production of the Tondar, an Iranian version of the company's cheap Logan model, would increase slowly through the first six months of 2014.

Medef has defended the visit, saying the Austrians, Germans, Portuguese, Italians, Chinese and even the Americans have been on the business trail to Iran before.

Pierre Gattaz, the head of Medef, said the delegation had not violated the terms of the interim nuclear accord.

"We faultlessly respected the Geneva convention of last November. We're familiar with this framework. There are other European country delegations who were in Iran," he said.

Last month, the US Treasury received $152m (£93m) from Luxembourg after the financial house Clearstream Banking was found to have illegally helped Iran's central bank to access the US finance system in 2007 and 2008 in violation of US sanctions.

Iran and the world's major powers have announced they will continue talks on 18 February in Vienna over a comprehensive agreement aimed at settling the decades-long dispute over Tehran's nuclear activities and the complete lifting of the nuclear-related sanctions. But those talks are threatened by hardliners both in the US and Iran. A significant number of US senators want more sanctions while hawks in Iran criticise the president, Hassan Rouhani, for agreeing to the interim deal. The US president, Barack Obama, however, has made clear he will veto any new sanctions bill as long as talks have not failed