Iran's rial hits record low amid nuke deal wrestle with U.S.

TEHRAN, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Iran's currency rial hit an all-time low against major foreign currencies on Monday.

In the street market, one U.S. dollar was traded for 61,000 rials and one euro was for 70,500 rials, registering a loss of more than a third of rial's value over the past year.

Official exchange centers and currency dealers in downtown Tehran suspended trades on Monday, citing the instability of exchange rates.

Over the past days, many street traders were arrested over deliberately creating turmoil in the market for monetary gains.

However, a main cause behind the market turbulence could be the rising tension between Iran and the United States over the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, as the latter has repeatedly threatened to pull out of it and reimpose sanctions.

On Jan. 12, the White House announced that U.S. President Donald Trump was seeking from the European countries an overhaul of the landmark deal in the next 120 days, or he would pull the U.S. out of the multilateral pact.

Valiollah Seif, governor of the Central Bank of Iran, attributed the volatility in rial to political uncertainty fuelled by Trump's anti-Iran rhetoric and his efforts to undermine the nuclear deal.

Earlier in the day, Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, spokesman of the Iranian government, said a special task force has been set up to control the currency market.

New policies would be hopefully developed and implemented in the coming days to regulate the currency market, he said. Enditem