Shafaq News/ Tehran gained access to Iranian assets frozen in the state-owned "Trade Bank of Iraq", the head of Iran's Trade Promotion Organization (TPO), Alireza Peymanpak, revealed on Saturday.
US sanctions have prevented Iran from accessing tens of billions of its assets in foreign banks. Iranian frozen assets in Iraq amount to more than $6 billion, according to Iranian officials.
Under US sanctions, Iraq pays the money for gas bought from Iran to an account at the Trade Bank of Iraq, which Tehran is only allowed to use to buy humanitarian goods from Iraq itself.
"The Trade Promotion Organization of Iran has also called for a priority list of the imported products financed by the recently-released currency resources, urging that the items subject to sanctions should be excluded from the list," Iran's Tasnim news said.
Last May, Iraq agreed to transfer $125 million of frozen Iranian funds to a European bank for the purchase of 16 million COVID-19 vaccine doses.
Earlier this month, South Korea's deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Choi Jong-kun held talks in Vienna with Iran and world powers over how to resolve the issue of frozen Iranian assets held in the Asian country.
While holding talks with world powers in Vienna to revive its 2015 nuclear accord, Tehran has demanded the release of $20 billion of its oil revenue it says has been frozen in countries such as Iraq, South Korea and China due to U.S. sanctions since 2018.
