TEHRAN, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- A senior Iranian official said on Wednesday that South Korea has to compensate Tehran for the drop in the value of Iran's recently released assets, which were blocked in the East Asian country's banks by the United States.
Mohammad Dehqan, Iran's vice president for legal affairs, made the remarks on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting in the Iranian capital Tehran.
He said the decrease in the value of Iran's assets, which had been deposited in two South Korean banks a few years ago and remained inaccessible by Iran ever since the United States sanctioned Tehran, was due to the depreciation of the South Korean currency against the U.S. dollar, according to the Iranian Students' News Agency.
Iran has mobilized its experts to investigate the case, sought consultation from international lawyers and will soon announce its final position on the issue, he added.
On Monday, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Mohammad Reza Farzin announced the transfer of the Iranian assets, amounting to around 5.94 billion dollars, to six Iranian accounts in two Qatari banks.
The Iranian assets were released under a Doha-brokered agreement between Tehran and Washington, as a part of which the two sides also swapped 10 prisoners, five Iranian nationals and five American citizens.
Iran has repeatedly rejected any link between the prisoner swap with the United States and the release of the country's frozen assets abroad. ■
