U.S. confirms unfrozen Iranian funds to be used for humanitarian purposes

Iranian funds recently released from Korea will be used for humanitarian purposes, an official of the U.S. State Department said Monday...

Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson of the U.S. Department of State, speaks with the press in Washington on Monday. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Iranian funds recently released from Korea will be used for humanitarian purposes, an official of the U.S. State Department said Monday.

“Iran’s accounts in other countries have been used to purchase humanitarian goods and services and to conduct other non-sanctionable transactions,” said Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson of the State Department, in a press briefing in Washington on Monday.

“And this money, as we continue to move along the process ... any kinds of funds that move will be subject to the same rigorous restrictions once it moves out of South Korea,” he added, responding to a reporter's question about Iran potentially using the funds for acts of terrorism.

Iran announced last week that its funds frozen in Korea had been unblocked and would be used for non-sanctioned goods.

The move is part of an agreement between the United States and Iran to free Americans detained in Iran in exchange for jailed Iranians and Tehran’s access to around $6 billion in funds frozen in Korea.

Some $6 billion in Iranian assets have been frozen at the Industrial Bank of Korea and Woori Bank since September 2019, when U.S. sanction waivers for Korea’s imports of Iranian oil expired.

Under the U.S.-Iran agreement, the United States promised to transfer nearly $6 billion of Iran’s oil revenue held in Korea, putting the funds into an account in the central bank of Qatar, according to a report from the New York Times on last Thursday.

In exchange, Iran agreed to allow four detained U.S. citizens to move into house arrest from Evin, one of the most notorious prisons in Tehran. A fifth was already under home confinement.

Bilateral relations between Korea and Iran have frayed in recent years due to the Iranian assets held in Seoul. Relations worsened further after President Yoon Suk Yeol said the biggest enemy and threat of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is Iran during his visit to the UAE in January.

“The use of funds like these for humanitarian purposes — for food, aid, things like that — has always been applicable and allowed under U.S. sanctions,” Patel said in the briefing. “As it relates to Iranian destabilizing activities in the region — their funding of terrorism, their provision of drones to the Russian Federation, their crackdown on human rights, all of those things — countering them is something that the United States is going to continue to pursue.”

Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement last week it hopes "the issue is resolved smoothly."

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]