By Nick Kostov

French telecommunications giant Orange SA's (ORA.FR) bid to expand into Iran will move forward only as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and world powers clarify the status of the deal to ease sanctions against the Islamic Republic, an Orange executive said Thursday.

"There is an absolute prerequisite which is to have an absolutely crystal-clear legal environment including regarding international sanctions," Chief Financial Officer Ramon Fernandez said at a Morgan Stanley conference in Barcelona. "We have a dialogue there but we will only progress in parallel with the clarification of the international framework."

Asked whether the election of Donald Trump would speed up or slow the process of opening Iran, Mr. Fernandez said in an interview that "nobody knows."

"In the run-up to the election people were saying both," he said. "It's a long-term project for us and we can be patient."

During his campaign, Mr. Trump said the Obama administration negotiated its landmark deal with Iran badly. He alternately said he would scrap the deal and that he would renegotiate its terms. "My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran," he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March.

In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Orange had held preliminary talks to buy a piece of Iran's largest cellular operator, Mobile Telecommunication Co. of Iran.

Orange is first looking to deepen ties with the company by signing a commercial and technical agreement to provide consultancy services. People familiar with the matter said the agreement would cover areas such as roaming connectivity and how to bring mobile virtual network operators onto the network.

Write to Nick Kostov at nick.kostov@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 17, 2016 13:14 ET (18:14 GMT)