UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) -- Iran’s right to vote at the UN General Assembly has been restored after its membership dues were paid to the world body, according to the Islamic Republic’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Majid Takht-Ravanchi said late Saturday that Iran’s arrears have been paid to the United Nations and the country’s voting right should naturally be restored at the beginning of the week.
South Korea on Sunday confirmed that it paid Tehran’s delinquent dues to the world body with frozen Iranian funds in the Asian country.
Iran had regained its UN voting rights in June after a similar payment, but said this month it had lost them again because it could not transfer the funds to pay its dues as a result of U.S. sanctions.
Seoul strictly follows Washington’s dictates on requiring the approval of the United States for releasing Iran’s frozen funds.
The country “on Friday completed the payment of Iran’s UN dues of about $18 million through the Iranian frozen funds in South Korea, in active cooperation with related agencies such as U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the United Nations Secretariat,” the finance ministry said in a statement.
Iran urgently asked South Korea last week to help pay the UN contribution with the frozen funds on concerns of the loss of its right to vote in 193-member General Assembly, the South Korean ministry said.
Tehran has repeatedly demanded the release of about $7 billion of its funds frozen in South Korean banks under U.S. sanctions, saying Seoul was holding the money “hostage”.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran, as an active member of the United Nations, has always been committed to paying its membership dues on time and we have proven this in action,” the Iranian ambassador said.
“Unfortunately, for the second year

in a row, we faced the problem of paying our membership fee due to the imposition of brutal and unilateral U.S. sanctions against Iran,” he added.
The United States reimposed its most draconian sanctions ever against Iran after the administration of former President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of a 2015 international nuclear agreement.
The Iranian envoy stressed that the U.S. sanctions have not only affected the supply of medicine, medical equipment, and humanitarian data-x-items but have also disrupted the work of the UN.
He said the Islamic Republic is working to secure a safe financial channel to pay its UN membership fee and reclaim its right to vote on various matters at the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.
Iranian authorities have repeatedly said they expect South Korea to do more on the release of the assets blocked illegally at two South Korean banks under the pretext of the United States’ sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Tehran has warned the case could negatively impact bilateral ties and threatened to take South Korea to court.