The release of Iran's blocked assets does not related to South Korea and Iraq

Speaking to ILNA news agency, he said that it probably related to Iranian Funds in South Korea.

"Trade between Iran and Iraq is relatively slow and ongoing. Iraq is Iran's second biggest export destination after China."

Yahya al-Eshaq adeded that the volume of Iran's trade with Iraq is now more than $ 5 billion.

But the chairman of Iran-South Korea Chamber of Commerce said in an interview with the ILNA news agency on Saturday that Seoul had had no change of policy with regards to more than $7 billion of Iranian funds held in two banks in the country.

“The $3.5 billion that was claimed to have been released was not related to the Iranian funds in South Korea,” said Hossein Tanhayi confirmed.

It also confirmed a Thursday Twitter post by the head of the official IRNA news agency Ali Naderi which indicated that $3.5 billion worth of Iranian funds held abroad will soon return to the “country’s trade cycle”.

Naderi hasnot given any clue as to which country would release the funds, .

Estimates suggest Iran has around $50 billion worth of funds in other countries for sales of crude and energy products that took place before the US sanctions were imposed in 2018.

Following imposition of the United States’ anti-Iran sanctions in recent years, billions of Iranian assets have been frozen in other countries’ banks and financial institutes; so, Iranian officials have been attempting to unlock the money via consultations with countries such as South Korea, Japan, Iraq and Oman.

Some Iranian news outlets have reported that $7 billion of Iranian money is frozen in India.

There are also some reports that Iraq must pay less than $2 billion to Iran, but the Iranian Central Bank mentioned that Iraq's total debt to Iran is around $5 billion.

There are different reports and announcements on exact volume of South Korea's debt to Iran from six to over nine billion dollars.

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