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Friday, April 26, 2024 21:59 GMT
Washington has reportedly agreed in principle on the partial transfer of Iranian funds held by South Korean banks under U.S. sanctions to Switzerland. A senior official at the Foreign Ministry told reporters on Thursday that the U.S. has in effect agreed to the plan, but added further discussions remain on the method of transfer. The governments of South Korea and the U.S. have discussed wiring the Iranian assets to Switzerland, from where it can be sent back to the Middle East country via the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA).The SHTA seeks to ensure that Swiss-based exporters and trading companies in the food, pharmaceutical and medical sectors have a secure payment channel with a Swiss bank, through which payments for their exports to Iran are guaranteed.The chairman of the Iran-Switzerland chamber of commerce Sharif Nezam-Mafi said to this respect that the news informing of the transfer of US$1 billion to Iran via the SHATA by South Korea has been announced by South Korean medias. The government of the Switzerland has not officially announced the news. He predicted that the news may be announced on Monday.According to Iranian state news agency IRNA, Iran's Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati told reporters on Wednesday that Iran will receive one billion U.S. dollars from South Korea, as the first tranche of some seven billion dollars in frozen assets that Seoul has agreed to release. The head of Iran-South Korea Joint Chamber of Commerce said on Saturday that Seoul is supposed to pay Iran’s frozen funds based on the items requested by Iranian officials. Hossein Tanhaei said US$1 billion of Iran’s frozen assets in South Korea will soon be transferred to an Iran-Switzerland financial channel to pay for foodstuffs, medicine, and medical equipment, IRNA reported.He said the medicine items that are set to be imported into the country were negotiated and determined in coordination with the Health Ministry. The developments regarding the release of Iranian frozen assets in South Korea were achieved following a meeting between Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Abdolnaser Hemmati and South Korean Ambassador to Tehran Ryu Jeong-hyun last week.In the meeting, which was held on the invitation of the South Korean Embassy, the two sides negotiated the ways and protocols for allocating a part of Iranian funds in South Korea for purchasing essential goods from third countries.On Wednesday, Hemmati said that at least US$1 billion of Iran’s frozen assets in South Korea will soon return to the country as the first stage of the unfreezing process. “In the meeting with the South Korean envoy, we stressed how Iran could use its resources,” the official told reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting. According to CBI, over US$7 billion of Iranian oil revenues have been frozen in two South Korean banks since September 2019, when Washington’s sanctions waiver for South Korea’s imports of Iranian oil expired. - KBS, Iran Daily, Etemad Online