Trita Parsi

There's gonna be an opening of the straits.

It's gonna take some time.

You know, they have to do some de-mining, et cetera, to be able to fully make it safe.

The US is gonna lift its blockade of the blockade, which I think ultimately complicated this matter much more so than helped the US.

I think there will be some release of funds, but it will be done in a manner in which Trump can say that he never released the funds and Iranians can say they got some of their money back.

And it's gonna be something that some of the GCC countries do in the middle to make sure that there's some money going to the Iranians while they're waiting for the actual Iranian money to be released.

And it's very important to keep this in mind.

This is Iran's own money.

They had about 120 to $150 billion

in various banks around the world.

That's how you do international trade.

You have the money there.

And if you buy food or whatever from there, you use that money.

These were frozen by US sanctions.

So the Iranians could not access it.

For how long have they been frozen?

Well, they were frozen first under the Obama era until they struck a deal and then it was unfrozen.

And then once Trump walked out of the deal in 2018, it was refrozen.

So since 2018, almost 10 years, a lot of Iran's money has been in these banks and they've not been able to access it.

Out of that 120 to 150, the Iranian demand has been that for the MOU, they should get 12, roughly eight to 10% released at the outset and another 12 released by the time that the MOU is concluded.