Washington granted a rare exception to strict US sanctions against Tehran in Seoul to settle a dispute dating back to 2010.
© AFP
Iran was an important trading partner of South Korea before the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Vienna Accord in 2018.
The United States has authorized South Korea to pay multi-million dollar compensation to an Iranian group to settle a dispute dating back to 2010, a rare exception to strict US sanctions against Tehran.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said it had received a “specific license” from the US Treasury to pay compensation of 73 billion won (56 million francs) to Iranian group Dayyani.
“The license allows us to use the American financial system to pay compensation to the Iranian private investor,” the ministry said in a statement, hoping that this outcome “will help improve bilateral relations” with Iran.
In 2018, the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, an agency of the World Bank, ordered Seoul to compensate Dayyani, an industrial machinery maker, after its failed acquisition by South Korean Daewoo. Electronics in 2010. But the compensation could never be paid because of the US sanctions.
Iran was a major trading partner of South Korea before the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Vienna nuclear accord three years earlier in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran .
Iran supplied oil to South Korea, which exported industrial equipment, auto parts and household appliances to Tehran. Tehran threatened Seoul last year with legal action to unblock more than $ 7 billion (6.4 billion francs) in payments for oil deliveries, frozen due to US sanctions.
Talks to save the 2015 agreement (“JCPOA”), supposed to prevent Iran from acquiring atomic weapons, were relaunched at the end of November in Vienna, after a five-month hiatus, between Tehran and other countries. parties to the pact (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, China). Washington is participating in it indirectly. South Korea has sent high-ranking diplomats to the talks, hoping to advance the issue of frozen Iranian assets at home.