US denies agreeing to unfreeze Iran assets
A senior United States official has denied a report that Washington agreed to unfreeze Iranian assets held in Qatar and other foreign banks as part of ongoing talks with Tehran. The denial came after an unnamed Iranian source told Reuters that the US had consented to releasing the frozen funds in return for safe passage for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. In a message from the White House, a senior US official dismissed the report as false, stressing that the meetings between both sides had not even started at the time the claim was made. Iran and the US have sent delegations to Islamabad, Pakistan, for talks aimed at ending the wider war in the Middle East. Tehran has publicly insisted that any permanent ceasefire must include unfreezing its sanctioned assets and an end to Israel’s war on Hezbollah […]