The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Friday it had “no information” about President Joe Biden’s plan to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets from South Korean banks to pay ransom for five American hostages.
The South Korean ministry’s statement implied it heard about the plan by reading American media reports on Thursday.
“Our government has been closely consulting with involved countries such as the United States and Iran to resolve the frozen fund issue, and hopes that the issue will be resolved amicably,” the South Korean Foreign Ministry said, referring to longstanding negotiations over the Iranian funds.
The Biden plan has been rolled out very awkwardly, with media reports on Thursday sourced to unnamed officials. The only immediate official confirmation came from the Iranian regime, which used its state media to confirm that “Iran’s frozen funds in South Korea will be unblocked and transferred to Qatar,” in exchange for which four of the five American hostages were moved from Iran’s infamous Evin dungeon into house arrest. The fifth hostage was reportedly already under house arrest.
Even the anonymous Biden administration sources who broke the story to major media outlets were only willing to name three of the hostages: Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharhi, and Morad Tahbaz. All three have been held by Iran for years on spurious “espionage” charges. Namazi has been held the longest, having been arrested in October 2015 during a family visit to Tehran.
Administration sources said the process of transferring Iran’s funds from South Korea to Qatar would take several weeks, during which time the hostages will be kept under house arrest. The deal, allegedly mediated by Qatar, along with Oman and Switzerland, will supposedly permit Iran to access its funds only to purchase food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies.
White House: We’re Not Paying Ransom to Iran, We’re Just Making Assets They Couldn’t Access “More Accessible”
The only on-the-record U.S. confirmation that a deal is in the works as of Friday morning came from White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson, who issued a statement on the “status of unjustly detained Americans in Iran.”
Watson said on Thursday afternoon:
We have received confirmation that Iran has released from prison five Americans who were unjustly detained and has placed them on house arrest. While this is an encouraging step, these U.S. citizens – Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, Emad Shargi, and two Americans who at this time wish to remain private – should have never been detained in the first place.
We will continue to monitor their condition as closely as possible. Of course, we will not rest until they are all back home in the United States. Until that time, negotiations for their eventual release remain ongoing and are delicate. We will, therefore, have little in the way of details to provide about the state of their house arrest or about our efforts to secure their freedom.
The Iranian funds were frozen in South Korea after former President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Iran has accused South Korea of stealing the money for years, describing it as payment for oil delivered to the South Koreans.
In January 2021, Iran seized a South Korean tanker in the Persian Gulf and held its crew hostage until April of that year, using it as leverage to unsuccessfully demand South Korea release the frozen billions.
The South Korean government has been hoping to resolve the frozen funds issue for years, in part because it remains a close ally of the United States but has also been one of Iran’s biggest oil customers. Seoul has nevertheless insisted that Iran must return to negotiating a revival of the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), before the funds can be unfrozen.
South Korean officials seemed blindsided by the sudden negotiation of a deal between the Biden administration and Tehran to resolve the Iranian assets issue. Korea Joongang Daily seemed to find one South Korean official who said the “process of unfreezing the Iranian assets” has begun, but it turned out they were mistakenly quoting an article from May about discussions between South Korean and U.S. officials about how Iran’s assets could be released if a deal with Iran was ever reached.
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