The background of the Korean ship’s arrest? Iran and South Korea are negotiating an exchange of petroleum money-corona vaccine
Reporter Kim Jong-yeol [email protected]
Input: 2021-01-05 13:29:42Revision: 2021-01-05 13:29:43Posted: 2021-01-05 13:30:18
As Iranian revolutionary guards detained Korean merchant ships locally, the issue of Iran’s oil settlement funds frozen in Korea is emerging as a public concern. It is interpreted that the actual reason for the detention of Korean merchant ships was not a measure for the failure to return the oil settlement funds. In the midst of this, it was belatedly known that Iran is in discussions with the South Korean government on how to use the frozen funds in Korea to purchase the Corona 19 vaccine.
According to a report by Yonhap News on the 5th, Hosein Tanhai, chairman of the Iran-Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told the Iranian ILNA news agency on the 3rd (local time), “Meeting with Senior Vice President Eshak Jahangiri on the 2nd, we will discuss how to use Iranian funds frozen in Korea. “We have proposed a way to use this money to buy products such as the Corona 19 vaccine,” he said. “The Korean government has not yet taken action on this transaction or freeze funding,” he said. “The two countries started to discuss how to use the frozen funds.”
In fact, Iran deposits frozen funds in a Korean bank as vaccine payments to the Korean government to participate in the’COVAX facility’, an international project for joint purchase and distribution of Corona 19 vaccines led by the World Health Organization (WHO). Asked to do it. As the Corona 19 vaccine belongs to the category of humanitarian transactions, it is not unlikely that the Iranian request will be accepted.
Much of the money for Iranian oil exports, which was frozen by the United States’ Iranian economic sanctions, is tied to Korea. It is known that about USD 7 billion (7 trillion KRW) of Iranian crude oil exports is frozen in the KRW account of the Iranian Central Bank of Woori Bank and IBK Industrial Bank.
According to Bloomberg News, Iran planned to buy a vaccine in search of frozen assets in South Korea last December. For this reason, some observers have even observed whether the Iranian Revolutionary Guards attempted to pressure South Korea to pay the frozen price by capturing Korean ships for violating environmental pollution laws.
Reporter Kim Jong-yeol [email protected]