Reports: Frozen Iranian Funds Transferred to Swiss Bank

By Staff, Agencies

South Korean media reported on Monday that Iranian funds that had been blocked in South Korea were transferred to Switzerland’s central bank last week for transfer to Iran.

Yonhap Infomax cited an unnamed currency market source as saying that the Swiss National Bank plans to exchange its $6 billion holdings in won for dollars and then euros in the currency market.

According to the report, the Swiss central bank will convert about 300 billion won [$223.85 million] to 400 billion each day for the next five weeks.

An official at South Korea’s finance ministry declined to confirm the report, citing the legal and diplomatic sensitivity of the matter.

The Iranian funds were illegally blocked in South Korea under the pretext of US sanctions.

Recently, Iran and the US reached an agreement, mediated by a third country, to resolve some issues. The deal includes an exchange of prisoners as a humanitarian issue and also the unfreezing of Iranian assets illegally blocked overseas.

The Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said last week that there is no connection between a prisoner exchange agreement with the United States and the release of Tehran’s assets.