Bagheri: South Korea is obliged to release Iran's assets

South Korea's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choi Jong Kun, who is in the Austrian capital Vienna, met and held talks with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani at noon on Thursday.

South Korea's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choi Jong Kun, who is in the Austrian capital Vienna, met and held talks with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani at noon on Thursday.
At the meeting, which was held at the request of the Korean side and at the office of the Islamic Republic of Iran's mission in Vienna, the Deputy Foreign Minister of South Korea referred to the importance of Seoul-Tehran relations and offered some explanations about Iranian blocked money in South Korea, adding that the country is trying to pay its debt to Iran.
The Deputy Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran stressed that regardless of the outcome of the talks in Vienna, the South Korean government is obliged to release the blocked Iranian money and that unilateral U.S. sanctions cannot justify non-payment of debts to Iran.
It was also clarified at the meeting that South Korea's illegal and unjustifiable refusal to repay its debts to Iran would be a dark point in the history of relations between the two countries and that Seoul must act as soon as possible to release Iran's resources.
It should be noted that this meeting was not directly related to the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the P4+1 group and was conducted within the framework of routine bilateral consultations between the two countries at the request of the Korean side.