TEHRAN (Iran News) – Seoul Urged to Find Ways to Compensate for Its Following Anti-Iran Sanctions. Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Mr. Gholam-Hossein Shafei in meeting with new South Korea’s Ambassador to Tehran Yun Kang-hyeon urged South Korea to find ways to compensate his country’s obeying the U.S. unilateral sanctions against Iran.
In the meeting, Shafei criticized the South Korea’s government for its obeying the U.S. sanctions against Iran, saying that unfortunately approach in Iran has become negative towards Seoul and the ties between the two states have been affected.
He then pointed to the old trade cooperation between Iran and South Korea as its sign and trace is completely visible in Iran’s different active industries and called the negative impacts of observing U.S. sanctions by Seoul wonderful. He reiterated that unfortunately the performance of Seoul in following the U.S. sanctions led to the negative view of Iranians towards South Korea.
Shafei then pointed to freezing of considerable amount of Iran’s resources in South Korea, saying that this has happened in a condition that the trade of medicines and foods were not sanctioned but South Korea has denied cooperating with Iran while Iran could easily provide its medicines from Japan which had closer ties with the U.S. than South Korea.
Shafei then said the trade volume between Iran and South Korea has slumped to $2b from $17b and it is a great economic loss for both sides and added that due to South Korea’s approach during the sanctions era, Iranian economic activists sought replacement for South Korea and this will undoubtedly affect the future activities between the two countries.
He also called for resolving the problem of Iranian companies which have signed with their Korean counterparts and even they have pre-paid but have not received their goods yet.
Shafei added that in order to soften the condition, South Korea should find ways for compensation in order to boost its trade with Iran.
Then the South Korean ambassador, for his part, said that his country seeks to revive trade relations with Iran, adding that Iran’s dissatisfaction with South Korea’s stance on U.S. sanctions is sensible.
Yun pointed to a previous meeting he had held with the former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, saying that the then Iranian president had expressed his frustration with the South Korean stance on the U.S. sanctions against Iran.
He added that he came to meet with the head of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce in an effort to revive bilateral relations between Tehran and Seoul.
He said that the U.S. sanctions against Iran harmed both the Iranian nation in the first place as well as the Korean economy to a lesser extent.
He put the amount of frozen Iranian assets in South Korea at $7 billion, saying that his country is interested in paying back the blocked financial resources to Iran in necessary ways.
“South Korea is looking for a new future, and in this regard, I promise to do my best to develop economic relations between the two countries,” the diplomat added.
