An Israeli media outlet, i24NEWS, claimed that “American officials say Iran will not receive any sanctions relief or unfrozen funds before it begins transferring its enriched uranium.”
However, based on what has been learned from the text drafted so far, such a claim is untrue, and Iran is not willing to tie the issue of releasing its frozen assets to nuclear materials.
Accordingly, Iran insists that part of its blocked assets must be released immediately upon any possible announcement of an understanding and be made fully accessible to Iran.
Tehran also stresses that previous negative experiences regarding the release of assets — which ultimately failed due to American backtracking — must not be repeated.
At this stage, Iran has also made no commitments regarding the details of the nuclear issue; therefore, the release of assets in the first step will have nothing to do with the issue of nuclear materials.
In addition, the initial understanding must remain focused on the issue of “ending the war.”
Based on the framework announced by Iran, if the release of frozen assets does not take place, one of the Islamic Republic’s red lines will not have been observed, and no understanding will be reached.
As previously noted, the memorandum of understanding itself has not yet been finalized for several reasons, including US obstruction in releasing Iranian assets even at this initial stage, and the possibility of no agreement remains.