The United States may impose sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran after accusing it of financial support to terrorism, non-transparent economic activities, the former Advisor of the Iranian Central Bank's President Bijan Bidabad said to TrendNews.

The US Finance Department accused the Central Bank of Iran of non-transparent economic activities, financial support to terrorism and of pursuing the policy which harms the world economic system. On 29 March, BBC reported that several US Congressmen, as well as several US Senators, sent an official letter to the President Bush in which they urged for imposing sanctions on Iran's Central Bank.

"The economic activities of Central Bank of Iran are wide at the international scene, so the sanctions will cause huge problems," Bidabad, the Professor of Economic Sciences at the Teheran University told TrendNews in a telephone conversation.

According to him, as the Central Bank has wide economic relations with foreign banks and companies, several countries especially Russia and China will oppose the sanctions. As a result of United States' pressure, the international banks will have to join the sanctions and that will badly hit the economics of Iran.

Although, the US Deputy Finance Secretary Stewart Levy in his interview at BBC did not rule out that an embargo may be put on the Central Bank of Iran, but he did not divulge a concrete forecast. According to Levy, the Central Bank has several times tried to avoid the mentioning of its name in economic agreements with other foreign banks. "The Central Bank of Iran turned out to be the key financial source of the terrorism organizations in Lebanon and Palestine," Levy said.

Washington accuses Iran of rendering financial assistance to Hezbollah and Hamas from 2000 to 2006 in the sum of at least $50mln. Iran denied that saying that its support to the organizations is only moral.

According to Bidabad, due to the sanctions imposed on several Iranian banks (Sepah, Saderat and Melli), the Central Bank had to avoid international principles and laws in its agreements and foreign financial transactions.

"In order to avoid the sanctions, the Central Bank, in addition of its partner banks, had to resort to cooperation with the third mediating bank. That caused rise in prices for imported goods, as well as distrust for the activities of the Central Bank. At present, most foreign companies avoid insuring the goods imported to Iran," Bidabad said.

The Central Bank of Iran has over 50 branches abroad. The United States imposed sanctions on the Sepah, Melli, Saderat and Millat banks which are controlled by the Central Bank.