Iranian money
Iranian moneyiStock

The governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Abdolnasser Hemmati, on Sunday called on the United States to remove banking sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Iran has been insisting on the removal of banking sanctions as a condition on its returning to full compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Hemmati was quoted as saying.

Then, Iran will verify the removal of sanctions against the CBI and other Iranian banks, and money transfer via SWIFT and between Iranian and other major foreign banks, he added.

"We will make the verification in our own ways," said Hemmati, adding that "personally, I am hopeful about the trend of negotiations."

Iran has gradually scaled back its compliance with the 2015 deal in response to former US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement in May of 2018.

It has continued to do so even as current President Joe Biden has indicated a desire to return to the deal.

Iran and the US have been holding indirect talks in Vienna on a US return to the deal.

The talks in Vienna have involved diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran and Russia who met the Iranian representatives, while US diplomats participated indirectly in the talks from a nearby hotel.

The US and European Union both said recently that more work was needed to revive the 2015 deal, while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the "negotiations have achieved 60-70 percent progress."

On Friday, Biden said he believed that Iran is approaching the talks on resuming compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal seriously.

“But how serious and what they’re prepared to do is a different story. We’re still talking,” he added.

On Thursday, CNN reported that the Biden administration is weighing unfreezing $1 billion in Iranian funds that the country could use for humanitarian relief.

It is not clear whether the release of the funds would occur unilaterally, but one line of thought is that it could serve as a useful goodwill gesture to Tehran, said three people briefed on the internal deliberations.