Seoul, August 25: Seoul said on Tuesday that Deputy Foreign Minister Chun Yung-woo is headed to the US for talks on sanctions imposed on Tehran.
Delegates from South Korea’s Foreign Ministry and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), a top financial watchdog, will accompany Chun, the ministry said in a statement.
Chun is expected to meet with Robert Einhorn, the state department’s special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control, and other US financial authorities to discuss details of the UN Security Council’s economic sanctions on Iran, the ministry added.
South Korean financial authorities have been considering possible sanctions against the Seoul office of Iran’s Bank Mellat.
The Seoul branch office of the bank, one of Iran’s biggest banks, is its only operation outside the Middle East and Europe.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Young-Sun told AFP that Seoul will also send a separate delegation to Tehran in the near future for talks related to the sanction.
If carried out, the move is likely to affect more than 2,000 South Korean companies involved in trade with Iran, most of which are settled through Bank Mellat’s Seoul branch.
Korea will reportedly suffer some 4 billion dollars in losses if it joins the US-led sanctions.
Korea’s automotive sector will also be hit especially as Iran is among the biggest Middle East markets for Korean cars.
Iran’s trade with South Korea, one of its biggest partners, surged more than 50 percent year-on-year to 7.4 billion dollars in the first seven months of this year mainly due to increased oil exports to the Asian nation.
Tehran accounts for 10 percent of South Korea’s annual oil imports.
The US has been urging its allies to join efforts in punishing Tehran over its nuclear.
Meanwhile, the US government has also urged Japan to implement additional sanctions on Iran, bringing them in line with European Union sanctions.
The foreign ministers of Iran, Turkey, and Brazil signed a declaration in Tehran on May 17, according to which Iran would ship 1200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey to be exchanged for 120 kilograms of 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel rods to power the Tehran research reactor, which produces radioisotopes for cancer treatment.
Despite the fact that Iran agreed to conduct the fuel swap, the UN Security Council passed a resolution on June 9 imposing new sanctions on Iran.
Following the UN Security Council resolution, the US and the European Union imposed unilateral sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and thus has the right to enrich uranium to produce fuel.
——Agencies