Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 25
By Umid Niayesh, Saeed Isayev - Trend: Some $8 billion of Iran's assets were released by the US, spokesman of Iran's administration, Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht said, IRNA reported on Nov. 25.
Iran and six world powers reached a breakthrough deal early on Sunday on Tehran's nuclear program. The two sides have signed a joint "plan of action". The deal signed in Geneva suggests some softening on sanctions against Iran.
Nobakht also said that the nuclear deal will positively affect Iran's economy, and the sanctions will be decreasing as the time goes on.
He went on to say that the mentioned assets are available for use, but Iran will not be converting all of that sum to national rial currency.
There is no concrete figure about the amount of Iran's frozen assets abroad. Iran's former Deputy Commerce Minister for Economic Affairs, Hamid Safdel said in February that $100 billion worth of Iran's assets have been blocked overseas.
Head of the Majlis Research Centre (MRC) Kazem Jalali said on August 2 that some $60 billion worth of Iranian assets were blocked by foreign banks.
In turn, AP reported on Oct. 18 that Iran's assets are estimated to be between $50 billion to $75 billion.
The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical researches instead.