The United States announced on Monday that it had authorized the transfer of 6 billion Iranian dollars frozen in South Korea within the framework of an agreement closed in August with Tehran for the release of prisoners.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken “signaled a waiver allowing the transfer of funds” in a formal notification to the US Congress, a spokesperson for his department said. This occurred last week, he added.
Hours earlier, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said they expected “the transfer to be completed in the coming days and for Iran to have full access to its assets.” The objective of this operation is to transfer $6 billion of Iranian funds, blocked in South Korea due to sanctions against the Islamic Republic, to a special account in Qatar.
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Iran will then be able to allocate these funds to humanitarian purchases, such as food and medicine..
Kanani stated on Monday that Iran could buy “any good not sanctioned” by the United States and “make full use of the unlocked funds,” not just to buy “medicine and food.” However, the US diplomatic spokesman said that “these funds will be transferred to restricted accounts in Qatar” and that “the United States will have the right to control how and when they are spent.”
This financial arrangement was announced on August 10 within the framework of an agreement between Tehran and Washington, mediated by Qatar, to release American prisoners held in Iran and Iranians held in the United States..
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“We are confident that the prisoner exchange will take place soon,” Kanani said. As part of the deal, Tehran placed five American prisoners of Iranian origin under house arrest, before their likely transfer to Qatar for release.
Experts believe that this arrangement, discreetly negotiated, reflects an easing of tensions between Iran and the United Stateswithout diplomatic relations since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. However, they do not advance a possible pact on the Iranian nuclear program of 2015, moribund since the United States withdrew in 2018 by decision of the then president, Donald Trump.
If it were to materialize in the coming days, the agreement would occur a year after the start of protests in Iran over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini and on the eve of the UN General Assembly in New York, which is expected that the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, attend.
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AFP
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