US denies releasing $3.5 billion in frozen Iranian assets
A US State Department spokesman denied that Iran's frozen assets had been released and said that Washington's allies had also not taken any action regarding the frozen funds. The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs had announced that $3.5 billion had been released.
During a press conference on Thursday, December 9, US State Department spokesman Ned Price denied statements by an Iranian official that billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets had been released.
Price emphasized: "Neither we nor our partners have provided the frozen funds to Iran."
Mehdi Safari, Iran's deputy foreign minister for economic affairs and former Iranian ambassador to China, said that Iran recently received $3.5 billion that had been blocked as part of sanctions.
Safari also announced the release of Iran's demands from "one of the countries" in the near future.
He did not provide further details regarding the $3.5 billion released.
Billions of dollars in Iranian assets have been frozen in several countries around the world, including South Korea, Iraq, and India, due to economic sanctions imposed on the country. These assets are mainly related to the export of crude oil to these countries.
The news or "rumor" of the release of Iran's frozen assets has been published several times before.
The news of the release of $3.5 billion in frozen Iranian money was originally published in November on Twitter by Ali Naderi, CEO of the state-run Iranian News Agency, and Mehdi Safari repeated it on the Iranian Broadcasting Corporation.
The Iranian deputy foreign minister for economic affairs has claimed that negotiations to free up Iranian funds were held during a trip to “a European country” and that they had “good results.” He told the Iranian Broadcasting Corporation: “I cannot disclose the figures.”
Source: DW
