South Korea pays Iran’s $18 million UN dues with frozen funds

Asia-Pacific, Middle East, News January 23, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

South Korea paid Iran’s delinquent $18 million United Nations dues with frozen funds after which Tehran is expected to regain its voting rights in the UN General Assembly.

South Korea’s Finance Ministry said in a statement “on Friday completed the payment of Iran’s UN dues of about $18 million through the Iranian frozen funds in South Korea, in active cooperation with related agencies such as US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the United Nations Secretariat.”

“Iran’s right to vote at the General Assembly is expected to be restored immediately with the payment,” the South Korean ministry added.

In June last year, Iran regained its United Nations voting rights after a similar payment but said it had lost them again for not being able to transfer the funds to pay its dues because of the U.S. sanctions.

*^{South Korea’s Deputy Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun (L) meeting with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, in Tehran. (Image Credit: Iranian Foreign Ministry/AFP)}*

Earlier this month, South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Seoul’s ambassador to Tehran and Iran’s central bank governor had reached an agreement in Tehran. In recent months Iran has repeatedly demanded the release of $7 billion of its frozen funds in South Korean banks under sanctions imposed by the United States over Iran’s nuclear program, saying that South Korea held the money “hostage”.

In recent months, Iran has been engaged in talks with the P5+1 to prevent the collapse of the JCPOA, an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program reached in Vienna in July 2015. The JCPOA was aimed at limiting Iran’s production of enriched uranium, which is widely used as fuel for nuclear power plants and could also be used for the development of nuclear weapons. Although Iran insists that it does not seek nuclear weapons, many Western countries argue that Tehran has enriched uranium to 60% and deployed advanced centrifuges. However, Iran continues to accuse the European signatories of the JCPOA of delaying the lifting of sanctions.