While Biden may well be looking for ways to save face in a standoff with Iran, he just gave the thumbs up for South Korea to release $7 billion in assets in Iran. Biden likely hopes this gesture will move Iran closer to negotiations with the U.S. If Biden is lucky, this money will lead Iran to soften its stance and return to the negotiating table, so as to restart the disastrous Iran nuclear deal that saw over $100 billion flow into the coffers of the Islamic Republic. That was a windfall that allowed the mullahs to continue their jihad in the region and globally; another such windfall is in the offing.
To facilitate the trade with Iran of humanitarian items, such as medicine and medical equipment, South Korea has been seeking to use a Swiss channel backed by the U.S., known as the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), to use the money through Swiss companies’ sales of goods to Iran.
But the trade of humanitarian items just frees up money for other activities. Who could forget Iran’s deceptions? These include its violation of the nuclear deal, and its own admission to having done so, as well as its boastful, repeated threats and provocations regarding its military capabilities. Yet far too many Western leaders have never recognized the implications of all this.
“Foreign ministry says Iran’s assets to be unlocked through consultations with US,” Korea Times, February 23, 2021:
The Iranian assets locked in South Korea will be released after consultations with the United States, the foreign ministry said Tuesday, after Iran claimed it has reached a deal with Seoul on how to transfer and use the frozen money.
According to Iran’s government website, the agreement was reached Monday (Tehran time) during the meeting between Iran’s Central Bank Gov. Abdolnaser Hemmati and South Korean Ambassador to Iran Ryu Jeong-hyun.
It said that the two sides agreed on the destinations for the transfer and that the Iranian central bank informed Seoul of the amount of the money it wants to be transferred.
Tehran has been pressuring Seoul to unblock about US$7 billion of its assets frozen in two South Korean banks due to U.S. sanctions. Seoul has been in talks with Washington on ways to release the money without violating the sanctions, including expanding humanitarian trade with the Middle Eastern country.
“Our government has been in talks with Iran about ways to use the frozen assets, and the Iran side has expressed its consent to the proposals we have made,” the foreign ministry said without providing further details of the proposals.
“The actual unfreezing of the assets will be carried out through consultations with related countries, including the United States,” the ministry said.
Earlier this month, a foreign ministry official said Seoul was finalizing talks with Washington about using some of the frozen funds to pay Tehran’s U.N. dues in arrears, to which the Islamic republic has also agreed.
To facilitate the trade with Iran of humanitarian items, such as medicine and medical equipment, South Korea has been seeking to use a Swiss channel backed by the U.S., known as the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), to use the money through Swiss companies’ sales of goods to Iran.
Despite the denial from Seoul and Tehran, speculation has mounted that Iran’s discontent over the frozen funds is related to its recent seizure of a South Korean oil tanker and its crew members in the Persian Gulf early last month….
owensgate says
7 Billion ROK cash, slightly less than half what the Manhattan Project cost in WWII adjusted to today’s dollar value, plus the 1.7 Billion obama cash, added to what they’ve already spent, means the Ayatollahs will have a bomb by the end of the year.
somehistory says
They could pay every moslum terror money. If there are one million moslums who can wage terror attacks (and we have been assured that the moslums who are terrorists are a “tiny minority,”) each one could have enough money to live high…on the hog, if they had a fondness for pork…and iran could still build their terror bomb.
And that is where the money will go…to fund terror, through hezbollah, hamas, terror groups in Syria, in Yemen, in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Israel, etc. None will be used for the common people of iran…none.
mortimer says
No strings attached for Iran … but for UKRAINE, yes … Crafty Joe demanded QUID PRO QUO from Ukraine to protect Hunter Bribed-en from an honest prosecutor..
Double standards from Deceitful Beijing Brided-en … the cognitively waning candidate of Big Tech and the Military Industrial Complex.
Infidel says
As Gordon Chang pointed out, President Moon is a major disappointment. In his zeal to achieve Korean re-unification, he’s happy to appease China and its other allies. Normally, we could ignore what they’re doing, except that if China gains control of Seoul, then all the semiconductor chips that Taiwanese companies are denying them – they can get from Samsung and Hynix
gravenimage says
And how can you re-unify North and South Korea? One is a free-trade democracy, the other one of the worst Communist tyrannies in history.
Infidel says
Ask President Moon: that’s one of his pet projects!!
Keith O says
Releasing funds to go to an enemy state.
I was always under the impression that doing so was classed as providing aid to the enemy.
Which by all definitions is treason.
When will the American people take their heads out of their arses and do something to take back their nation from these enemies of the people?
gravenimage says
South Korea to release $7 billion in frozen assets to Iran after consulting with Biden’s handlers
……………
More suicidal insanity. The Mullahs are not the Shah.
OLD GUY says
Question how much foreign aid has the American tax payer sent to Iran over the past 50 years? Maybe we should get a refund from Iran being Biden is helping them get this $7 billion from South Korea. The other question is why are we sending foreign aid to South Korea if they can afford to refund $7 billion to Iran?
This whole foreign aid and military aid is nothing more than a money pit for the American Tax Payer, while our politicians rake off millions for their own families through consultants and corporation profits.
We need TERM LIMITS and restrictions on campaign spending or the dirty Washington money pit will continue to prosper. There are thousands of lobbyist and lawyers in Washington making millions off the system, without producing anything of value. They love to occupy US with racism and diversity while they continue to waste and misappropriate our money.