Iran will decide how to use unfrozen assets: ambassador

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 would not fund terrorism and could instead be used to buy US goods such as soybeans.

Vance said that US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, along with Qatar, a co-mediator in the talks, had come up with “a very interesting solution” to ensure those funds were not misused.

“If there is any frozen Iranian assets that are unfrozen, then we have approval over that process; the Qataris have approval over that process,” he said.

Ali Bahreini, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, flatly 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 in Geneva.

“So I reject any claim about that there… would be any role for any other country to have an influence on those decisions or on those process.”

Bahreini had been with the Iranian diplomatic team at the Burgenstock complex in central Switzerland where the mediated talks between the United States and Tehran took place on Sunday.

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.

The issue of unfreezing assets is part of a memorandum of understanding signed last week by Tehran and Washington, laying the groundwork for 60 days of negotiations to settle broader issues including Iran’s nuclear programme and sanctions relief.

Bahreini said that Iran’s blocked assets would be unfrozen “very soon”.

He acknowledged that “there are some technical arrangements which should be made by United States and by Qatar, because the assets have been frozen by the United States, and at least some parts of those assets are in Qatar”.

“Definitely there is a role for them, but that role is limited to these technical aspects of defreezing of assets,” he said.

“Certainly, Iran does not allow them to have further influence on the other processes… That is something Iran and only Iran will decide.”