Iran’s Blocked Assets in South Korea Released: CBI Governor


TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) said that all of Iran’s assets blocked in South Korea were released and will be used in the form of banking payment to purchase non-sanctioned goods and commodities.

 In a tweet on Saturday, Mohammad Reza Farzin wrote that all of Iran’s currency resources seized in South Korea were released and they will be used for purchasing non-sanctioned goods.

“I seize this opportunity to thank the currency diplomacy team of the country due to their success in unfreezing Iran’s assets. Undoubtedly, what has been obtained is beyond the available analysis and of course, this trend will continue,” the CBI governor wrote, FARS news agency reported.

It is necessary to emphasize that, unfortunately, nearly $7 billion of country's foreign exchange resources had been deposited in South Korean banks in the form of won (national currency of South Korea) during the late 1990s, and no interest was paid to it. Even during these years, nearly $1 billion of the asset faced a decrease in parity value due to the decrease in the parity of won to the dollar, he stated.

However, all the seized foreign currency resources of Iran were released in South Korea with technical follow-up and successful diplomacy and the costs of converting its currency from won to euro were also accepted by a third country, Farzin noted.

Accordingly, all these euro resources will soon be deposited into the accounts of six Iranian banks in Qatar and used as bank payments to buy non-sanctioned goods while the rest of these resources will be subject to receiving bank interest, he added.