U.S.’ Blinken: no green light to countries to release Iranian funds frozen

Shafaq News / The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, denied the news that the US administration gave green light to release Iranian funds frozen in several countries.

Blinken, during his confirmation hearing rejected this information about intervening with South Korea and Iraq to release billions of dollars of Iranian oil funds frozen.

"If Iran returns to fulfilling its obligations under the nuclear deal, we will do the same." He said.

On February, Iran expressed hope that South Korea and Japan would agree to release about $1 billion of Iranian funds frozen in the two countries because of U.S. sanctions, but South Korea said it still needed to discuss the matter with the United States.

Meanwhile, Iraq owes about $7 billion to Tehran for importing gas and electricity, president Hassan Rouhani discussed the issue with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi last week saying "Iran has billions of dollars in Iraqi banks, and they have been frozen against the law, and despite repeated promises by Iraqi officials, they have not been released yet.”

In Addition, Iranian state media have assessed Iranian revenues in the Chinese banks as high as $20 billion.

The United States reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018 after then President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers. Under that deal, Iran had agreed to curb its nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

Iran has been unable to obtain tens of billions of dollars of its assets in foreign banks, mainly from exports of oil and gas, due to the U.S. sanctions on its banking and energy sectors.

Iran has repeatedly asked the countries for access to the blocked revenues, even offering barter deals. But its efforts, including attempts to buy humanitarian goods and medicine which are exempt from U.S. sanctions, have mostly failed.