News / Politics

UN chief to assist in frozen assets dispute if both parties request it

Saturday, 30 April 2016 12:16 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 30 April 2016 2:07 AM ]

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (Reuters)

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is willing to help resolve a dispute between Iran and the US on Tehran's frozen assets, but only if the two sides make that request, a UN spokesman says.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote a letter to the UN chief on Thursday, calling on him to use his "good offices" to press Washington to release Iran’s frozen assets in US banks in line with the nuclear agreement reached between Iran and six global powers last year.

Confirming the receipt of Zarif's letter, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Friday, "The secretary general's good offices are always available should both parties to whatever tensions or issue request it."

Zarif’s letter came after the US Supreme Court ruled on April 20 that some two billion dollars of Iran’s frozen funds in the US had to be turned over to the American families of the victims of a 1983 bombing in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and other attacks blamed on Iran. The Islamic Republic has denied any role in the attacks.

*Iranians bid farewell to the victims of a passenger plane shot down by the US navy over the Persian Gulf waters on July 3, 1988. (IRNA)*

In his letter, the Iranian minister wrote, “The Islamic Republic of Iran holds the United States government responsible for this outrageous robbery, disguised under a court order, and is determined to take every lawful measure to restore the stolen property and the interest accrued to it from the date it was blocked by the United States.”

He also added, "It is in fact the United States that must pay long overdue reparations to the Iranian people for its persistent hostile policies."

Zarif pointed to the key role of the US in the 1953 coup in Iran against the government of then democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, US backing for Iraq's former dictator Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, and the intentional shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by the US navy in 1988 as grounds for US compensation to the Iranians.

Iran and the P5+1 group -- the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany -- reached the nuclear agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in July 2015 in the Austrian capital Vienna. The agreement went into effect on January 16.

Under the JCPOA, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US would be lifted. Iran has, in return, put some limitations on its nuclear activities.

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