In 2018, Donald Trump’s administration unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal and tightened sanctions against the Islamic Republic, including imposing restrictions on imports of Iranian oil. South Korea, which was one of the main buyers of Iran’s energy resources, blocked the money in its banks intended to pay for one of the oil shipments to comply with these sanctions.
Now the United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has signed a decree according to which the Americans will not apply the punitive measures provided for in their sanctions for the transfer of these funds, which will be carried out in several stages. In this case, the funds will not be sent to Iran, but to special bank accounts in Qatar. The Iranian authorities will have access to them, but, according to the American side, under the terms of the agreement, these funds can only be spent on food and other humanitarian needs.
But the official representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanani Chafi, says that the unlocking of Iranian assets and the exchange of prisoners are “two separate issues.” However, he expressed hope that both issues could be resolved “in the near future” and Iran would gain “full access” to its assets.
The exact timing of the transaction has not yet been announced and media believe it will take up to two months. The Washington Post indicates that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and US President Joe Biden will be in New York next week to attend UN General Assembly events. According to the publication, European diplomats hope that the prisoner exchange and the release of assets can create the preconditions for negotiations on possible conditions for a new agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Contacts on this issue are ongoing between Washington and Tehran, but nothing specific has been announced and previous negotiations on this issue have reached a dead end.
Although the US State Department emphasizes that it is not about lifting sanctions on Iran, but rather a one-time deal, hawkish congressmen are not satisfied with its terms. They demand the unconditional release of the prisoners, while criticizing Iran for strengthening relations with Russia and on human rights issues. The head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States House of Representatives, Michael McCaul, believes that the decision “directly motivates the enemies of the United States to capture its citizens” for such purposes, and describes the measure as a sign of “weakness”. The State Department defends itself in the sense that US sanctions supposedly by their nature “should not block the flow of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods and services to ordinary people, no matter how inconvenient their governments may be” for Washington .
