US: "No Agreement on Releasing Iran's Frozen Funds"

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] On the 2nd (local time), the U.S. Department of State immediately denied media reports claiming that it had agreed to release $7 billion (approximately 7.8225 trillion KRW) of Iran's overseas frozen funds.

According to the Associated Press, on the same day, Iran's state-run broadcaster cited an anonymous official reporting that Iran had reached a prisoner exchange agreement involving the release of $7 billion in frozen overseas funds and the release of four Iranians detained in the U.S. in exchange for four Americans held in Iran.

The official also stated that the British government agreed to pay 400 million pounds in exchange for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national activist detained in Iran.

However, the U.S. side immediately dismissed Iran's media reports. Ned Price, spokesperson for the Department of State, denied the reports, saying, "The reports that a prisoner exchange negotiation has been concluded are not true." He added, "We always raise the issue of Americans detained or missing in Iran and will work to reunite them with their families."

Ron Klain, White House Chief of Staff, also appeared on CBS's Face the Nation and said, "Unfortunately, those reports are not true," adding, "We always raise this issue with Iran and the negotiators, but so far, there is no agreement to bring the four Americans home."

Jake Sullivan, White House National Security Advisor, also stated in an interview with ABC that "there is still a long way to go to narrow differences" and that efforts to mutually return to the Iran nuclear deal will continue for weeks.

Advisor Sullivan explained that to narrow the remaining differences, "there is still a long way to go," and "these differences concern which (anti-Iran) sanctions the U.S. and other countries will lift, and what constraints Iran will accept on its nuclear program to ensure it never acquires nuclear weapons."

Iran has $7 billion in funds that should be received from South Korea but are frozen due to U.S. sanctions. In 2010, Iran opened won-denominated accounts at IBK Industrial Bank and Woori Bank under the name of the Central Bank of Iran and received payments for crude oil exports through these accounts.

However, in 2018, the U.S. government placed the Central Bank of Iran on the sanctions list, halting transactions through these accounts, and the Iranian government has demanded the release of these frozen funds.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.