Tehran, Iran — Iran is not holding any direct talks with the United States and doesn’t plan to hold any in the future, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Monday.
“Reports that a meeting between Iranian and American officials will be held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting are not true. Iran is not holding direct talks with the United States and is not planning to do so either on the margins of the General Assembly or elsewhere,” he told a news conference.
Kanaani said the two countries have held only indirect talks to discuss a prisoner exchange and unblocking Iranian assets, TASS reported.
Last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian dismissed any connection between the exchange of prisoners with the US and the release of Iran’s assets frozen abroad, according to Tasnim News Agency.
He noted that the agreement between Iran and the US, mediated by a third country, contains two separate agendas about the prisoner swap and the release of Iran’s assets.
The indirect exchange of messages between Iran and the US has been in progress for months, the top diplomat added, stressing, “We have never been after an interim or little-for-little agreement.”
The New York Times reported on August 10 that the United States and Iran had reached an agreement on a prisoner swap. On the same day, the While House confirmed that such an agreement had indeed been reached but suggested that it would be expedient to wait until US nationals are back home from Iran before announcing the completion of the deal.
Under the deal, Tehran will receive access to $6 billion of its assets frozen in South Korean banks due to US sanctions.
After its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the United States imposed sanctions on Tehran and banned the eight largest importers of Iranian oil, including South Korea, from buying from Iran.
After that, Seoul, at the United States’ request, froze around $7 billion Tehran was to receive for the oil it had supplied to South Korea in recent years. South Korea deposited the money meant to be paid for the Iranian oil into its banks but could not transfer it to Iran due to the US sanctions, TASS said.