Iran to receive $2.8b in frozen assets

TEHRAN, July 19 (Xinhua): The world powers agreed to unfreeze US$2.8 billion of Iran's frozen assets over the next four months, Press TV reported on Saturday.
"Over the next four months, $2.8 billion will be deposited into Iran's account in six instalments," senior nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi said on Saturday after the end of the nuclear talks in the Austrian capital Vienna between Iran and the P5+1 group, namely Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany.
"Four $500-million and two $400-million tranches will be paid to Iran at three-week intervals beginning on August 1," said Araqchi.
In exchange, Iran will convert its 20-per cent-enriched uranium, already oxidised under the Geneva interim deal, to fuel for Tehran nuclear reactor, Araqchi was quoted as saying.
Under the deal clinched in Geneva last November, Iran was granted access to $4.2 billion in past oil revenues from India and other countries. An estimated $100 billion in payments for Iranian oil purchase have been blocked due to US sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme.
Earlier in the day, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in Vienna that Iranian nuclear talks will be extended for another four months till November 24 as the stakeholders still have "significant gaps on core issues."