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Iran Complains About New US Visa Rules


FILE - Passengers arriving from abroad at Los Angeles International Airport use new automated passport kiosks.
FILE - Passengers arriving from abroad at Los Angeles International Airport use new automated passport kiosks.

Iran is complaining that new U.S. travel restrictions on four countries, including Iran, violate the nuclear deal with six world powers.

"This law certainly affects economic, tourist, scientific and cultural exchanges with Iran and it contravenes the nuclear deal," Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday.

The restrictions are part of the new federal spending bill President Barack Obama signed on Friday.

Visitors from 38 countries whose citizens do not need visas to come to the United States will now have to get one if they are also duel citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Sudan -- four nations the U.S. says are known to have sponsored terrorism. They will also visas if they have traveled to those countries in the past five years.

Araghchi said Iran plans to take up the matter with the commission overseeing implementation of the nuclear agreement.

Under the deal restricting Iranian nuclear activity, the United States is not to interfere with any trade or economic activity that could lead to normalized relations with Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a letter to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that the United States will fully adhere to its commitments under the nuclear deal.

He also reminded Zarif that the White House has the authority to waive provisions of the new visa law.

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