The United States has promised not to punish European banks that facilitate transactions with Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Saturday in an exclusive interview with Kyodo News.

Zarif, in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, said he received assurances from U.S. counterpart John Kerry that greater efforts would be made to allay the undue concerns of European banks.

"The U.S. says they encourage everybody outside U.S. to engage in business with Iran. Of course, we believe that was not sufficient, so we asked them to take further action to convince and actually remove the concerns of foreign institutions, particularly banks, about working with Iran," he said.

By Kyodo News