Abbas Araqchi, who is also Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said 500 million dollars of Iran’s assets has been released.
“Coordination is being made between the two sides to deposit the amount to the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.
“The amount is the first installment of a total of 2.8 billon dollars to be released within the framework of recent agreement between Iran and the P5+1,” he said, referring to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China – plus Germany.
Based on the July agreement between the two sides in Vienna, the 2.8-billion-dollar amount will be paid to Iran in six parts – four 500-million-dollar and two 400-million-dollar installments, in three-week intervals.
Iran and the six countries are to resume their negotiations to discuss a final agreement over Tehran’s nuclear energy program in September. Iran’s right to enrich uranium is among the bones of contention between the two sides.
They clinched a landmark interim deal in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 23, 2013. The agreement took effect on January 20 and expired six months later on July 20.
In July, the two sides agreed on the extension of their discussions until November 24 in an effort to achieve a permanent nuclear deal.
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