Iran will decide alone how to use its unfrozen assets under a US-Iranian deal, rejecting US claims of oversight over the funds.
GENEVA: Tehran alone will decide how to use its frozen assets once they are unfrozen under a US-Iranian deal towards ending the Middle East war, an Iranian ambassador said Tuesday, contradicting US claims.
As part of the deal under negotiation, Washington has agreed to release $12 billion in frozen funds to Iran, Iranian state media reported on Tuesday, and temporarily suspend sanctions on oil from the Islamic republic.
US Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that Iranian assets had not yet been unfrozen as part of the deal and that, if they were, they could be used to buy US goods such as soybeans and would not fund terrorism.
Ali Bahreini, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, rejected that.
“Iran is the only country who will decide what to do with its assets, which are going to be defrozen,” he told reporters at a briefing in Geneva hosted by the UN correspondents’ association ACANU.
“I reject any claim by (Washington) about that there should… be any role for any other country to have an influence on those decisions or on those processes.”
Iran has been subject to asset freezes and sweeping sanctions by the United States and others for much of its history since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
