TEHRAN, Jan 7 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, said yesterday that, the government of the Republic of Korea (ROK) is obliged to unfreeze Iranian funds, in the country’s banks, blocked under the pretext of U.S. sanctions.
“Regardless of the outcome of the Vienna talks, the ROK government is committed to releasing Iran’s blocked funds in currency, and unilateral U.S. sanctions cannot justify non-payment of its debts to Iran,” Bagheri Kani said, in a meeting with ROK’s Vice Foreign Minister, Choi Jong-kun, in Austria’s capital, Vienna.
ROK’s “illegal and unjustifiable” refusal to pay its debts to Iran, will be a dark point in the history of relations between the two countries, he said, adding, Seoul must act as soon as possible to unfreeze Iran’s monetary resources.
The meeting between Bagheri Kani and Choi was not directly related to the current negotiations in Vienna, over the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal.
The meeting took place within the framework of the usual bilateral consultations between the two countries, and at the request of the ROK side.
Over seven billion U.S. dollars of Iranian funds from oil exports are frozen in ROK’s banks, amid U.S. sanctions.
