The daily Iran news bulletin published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) yesterday conveyed Persian-language remarks from a top Iranian official declaring that the Hassan Rouhani government was committed to leveraging the private sector in order to stabilize and then boost Iran’s economy, a day after Rouhani himself gestured toward the same theme in comments about the country’s Free Trade Zone.

The statements come amid news reports indicating that Western companies are seeking to enter Iran’s reopened markets in the aftermath of sanctions relief provided by the interim Joint Plan of Action (JPA). Last week Forbes published analysis from Emanuele Ottolenghi and Benjamin Weinthal – respectively a senior fellow and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies – outlining extensive and growing business ties between Iran and Swiss companies.

The Wall Street Journal had for its part described Western firms, including Michelin and Schlumberger, as “walk[ing] a fine line” in their eagerness to respond to aggressive courtship by the Islamic republic.

The Financial Times had already in February described French, German, and Dutch delegations scrambling to “seize opportunities” in Iran. At stake are assurances made by the Obama administration to lawmakers and the public insisting that the international sanctions regime was holding despite the JPA’s erosion of some sanctions, and that new congressional legislation to provide Western negotiators with more leverage was unnecessary.

Speaking yesterday at a Senate hearing, Treasury Under Secretary David Cohen declared that he was unaware of any firms “anywhere” – not in “Europe, the Gulf, [or] Asia” – that were “trying to take advantage… [of] the quite limited suspension of the sanctions to get into the Iranian market.” Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, described the claim as “bulls**t” [sic].