Iran and South Korea have reached an agreement on using "a part" of Iran’s foreign currency assets frozen in the Asian country.
The agreement was reached in a meeting between the governor of central bank, Abdolnasser Hemmati and South Korea’s ambassador in Tehran, Ryu Jeong-hyun, according to a statement published on the CBI website.
"Agreements were reached on how the money would be transferred to the target destinations," the Central Bank of Iran said in the statement. "The CBI announced the amounts to be transferred and the target banks".
The South Korean envoy said his country is prepared to do whatever is necessary to enable Iran use "all its blocked resources" in his country.
Welcoming Seoul’s approach, the CBI chief said "legal efforts will continue for compensating losses incurred by the lack of cooperation from Korean banks. The Koreans need to work hard to remove the negative past.”
Last month Tehran informed the Koreans that it was planning to go to international courts if the issue of the locked assets is not resolved bilaterally.
Iranian forex assets locked in Korea are estimated between $7-9 billion due to United States bullying under Donald Trump and his failed "maximum pressure" policy against Iran.
The former American ruler imposed an illegal economic blockade on Iran in 2018 after abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers.
Tehran has long complained about the Korean government’s refusal to unlock its assets to buy essential goods and medicine including the coronavirus vaccine.
Talks between the two sides over the blocked assets have intensified in recent weeks after the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) seized the Korean Hankuk Chemi vessel in the Persian Gulf for violating environmental protocols in the sea in late January.
South Korea was a major buyer of Iranian oil before the sanctions. Home to a massive refining industry, the country is the world’s fifth-largest oil importer. Before the new US restrictions Iran accounted for almost 15% of Korea’s oil imports.
After the US restricted the use of dollars for transactions with Iran, the CBI created new accounts with Korea’s commercial banks to facilitate trade in won.
The two countries had used the accounts based on the Korean currency to continue Korea's imports of oil from and exports to Iran. Those accounts were also frozen after the Trump administration tightened sanctions on Iran’s oil exports in 2019.
Talks With Japan Envoy
In a note on his Instagram page on Monday, Hemmati said he also met Kazutoshi Aikawa, Japan's ambassador to Tehran.
Pointing to cordial ties between the two countries, Hemmati said he informed the senior Japanese envoy about the need for closer trade and economic cooperation regardless of (US) political pressures.
"The Japanese side should take the initiative and let Iran have access to its own resources and transfer it” to where it wants, he wrote.
Kazutoshi appreciated the CBI's efforts to help settle Iranian companies' debt to their Japanese partners. As one way the CBI can tap into its $1.5 billion locked in Japanese banks, the diplomat proposed using part of the money to import Covid-19 vaccine into Iran.
Tehran has criticized Japan for blocking Iranian assets estimated to be around $1.5 billion. Japan was one of the main buyers of Iranian oil before the US sanctions.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told his Japanese counterpart last October that Iran should be able to use its foreign currency resources held in Japan, and denounced the limits preventing the purchase of medicine and food.
