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Tehran gets new tranche of frozen assets

1 April 2015 11:14 (UTC+04:00)
Tehran gets new tranche of frozen assets

By Sara Rajabova

Tehran has received the next installments of its frozen assets which were agreed upon following the extended nuclear deadline with P5+1 group.

The Central Bank of Iran announced on March 31 that $ 490 million was transferred to its accounts in Oman as part of the third phase of the unblocking of the country’s assets overseas.

It was the fifth installment of a total of $4.9 billion which had been agreed to be delivered to Iran in 10 payments, Press TV quoted the CBI.

Iran received around $7.0 billion of its frozen assets in the two previous phases of the agreement.

In November 2013, Iran and the P5+1 group -- Russia, China, France, Britain, the U.S. plus Germany -- clinched an interim nuclear deal for a period of six month. Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities as a confidence-building measure, and the world powers undertook to provide Iran with some sanctions relief.

The relief included the unblocking of some of the country’s oil money, which had been frozen in foreign banks as part of the sanctions.

The two sides have missed two self-imposed deadlines to arrive at a comprehensive deal since that time. Representatives of Iran and the six countries are now working to hammer out a final accord by the end of June 2015.

There is no concrete figure for the amount of Iran's frozen assets abroad. Head of the parliament Research Center KazemJalali said in August 2013 that foreign banks had blocked some $60 billion worth of Iranian assets. In turn, the U.S. administration said Iran 's frozen assets are estimated to be worth $100 billion.

The U.S. and EU imposed sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors at the beginning of 2012 due to claims of potential deviation toward non-civilian purposes in Iran's nuclear energy program. Iran has repeatedly denied the Western allegations against its nuclear energy program.

The sanctions are aimed to prevent other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. At the end of 2012, the EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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