Iran’s frozen assets, one of the issues in their proposed peace settlement, are estimated to actually be north of $100 billion. This estimate includes funds in the US, assets restricted abroad, oil revenues in escrow, and central bank reserves blocked due to US secondary sanctions.
The $6 billion portion in Qatar that is being mentioned in various reports is just the tip of the iceberg. It was supposed to have been returned to Iran in 2023. It is simply funds from Iranian oil sales to South Korea, frozen in 2018 and held in South Korean banks since the first-term President Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions. In September, 2023, the U.S. agreed to return the $6 billion as part of a U.S. -Iran prisoner swap mediated by Doha. (Even then, Iran’s money was limited to only being used for paying US Treasury-approved vendors.) However, a month later, after Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack, Biden’s administration re-froze the money, claiming that Washington retained the right to fully block the funds.
