The United States has refrozen Korea’s payment for Iran’s crude oil exports that South Korea transferred to a Qatari bank as part of a prisoner swap deal between the United States and Iran.
On Oct. 12 (local time), the U.S. government said that Iran will not be able to get its hands on US$6 billion transferred to the Qatari bank as part of a prisoner swap deal between Washington and Teheran in September, according to foreign media outlets. U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo met with Democratic members of Congress and told them that the U.S. and Qatari governments reached an agreement not to allow Iran to take the money on Oct. 12.
In 2019, then-U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a total ban on Iran’s oil exports, stranding a payment of US$6 billion for Iranian oil to South Korea in a South Korean bank. In September, the U.S. unfroze the money and transferred it to the Qatari bank as part of a prisoner swap deal with Iran. The United States lifted the freeze on the condition that Iran use the money only for humanitarian purposes such as buying food and medicine.
Source : Business