US says reviewing waivers granting Iran economic relief

The money is deposited in the form of securities with Clearstream, a subsidiary of the Deutsche Börse in Luxembourg as well as with an Italian bank.

Hit with harsh US-led sanctions, Iran faces deepening economic problems at home and the challenge of replenishing its military capabilities and those of armed allies in the Middle East after over a year of fighting spanning the region.

Originally belonging to Iran's central bank, the funds originally valued at just below $4.9 billion were frozen in 2008 at the insistence of Washington and were claimed as damages for victims of a 1983 US military barracks bombing in Beirut.

That attack killed 241 US troops and was blamed on militants belonging to a group which would become Lebanese Hezbollah acting with alleged Iranian backing.

According to Der Spiegel, which did not disclose its sourcing, an executive it named as Majid A. with US-sanctioned state oil company Sepehr Energy is leading an effort to reclaim the funds.

The executive and his associates, it added, have applied for European visas to argue the case.

Der Spiegel appeared to be referring to Majid A’zami, the managing director of Sepehr Energy, who was put under US Treasury sanctions in 2023.

Iran's central bank sued Clearstream in 2018 to pay out the $4.9 billion plus interest but around $1.9 billion was transferred to a US account five years previously to pay victims of the Beirut attack and their families.

"Making Iran broke again will mark the beginning of our updated sanctions policy," Bessent told members of the Economic Club of New York, highlighting the impact of US sanctions on the nation's currency.

The Iranian rial has lost half of its value in less than six months, partly because of Tehran's regional setbacks and partly due to harsh sanctions rolled out under Trump.

The President has begun an "aggressive campaign to rebalance the international economic system," Bessent added.

The so-called maximum pressure policy on Iran was introduced in Trump's first administration and renewed immediately after he returned to the White House in January.

The policy involves more sanctions and stricter enforcement on Iran's oil exports.

The Trump administration is considering a plan to inspect Iranian oil tankers under an international accord designed to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction, Reuters reported earlier on Thursday.

The administration is exploring ways for allied countries to stop and inspect vessels in key maritime chokepoints, including the Malacca Strait in Asia, according to the agency citing six sources familiar with the matter.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, addressing parliament on Sunday, acknowledged Trump’s latest sanctions, saying Iran’s tankers now face uncertainty in unloading their cargo.

Iran's oil exports have fluctuated dramatically in recent years, depending largely on Washington's will to enforce sanctions and Tehran's ability to find new ways to get its oil to its main customer, China.

In 2017, before US sanctions were imposed, Iran exported 2.5 million barrels per day. By 2020, this figure had plummeted to around 350,000 bpd.

As Joe Biden took office in 2021, Iran’s oil exports rebounded, peaking at nearly 1.9 million bpd in the summer of 2024. After President Biden administration’s imposed sanctions on dozens of tankers involved in smuggling Iranian oil, exports dropped by 500,000 bpd in the final quarter of 2024.

"This is a brand new arrangement ... we were not confronted with this four years ago," Keith Kellogg told the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington DC. "This is not just a European problem. This is a global problem."

"Four years ago," he added, "the North Koreans were over here. The Iranians were over here. The Russians, you know, were over here, working, working (the Ukraine) issue, and then the Chinese were over here. Well, now they're all together," he said.

Russia suggested to the United States that the two powers should hold talks focused on Iran's nuclear program, a Kremlin spokesman said on Wednesday, in yet another sign of converging outlooks on global affairs by Washington and Moscow.

Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Russia has agreed to assist Washington in communicating with Iran on various issues, including its support for regional groups hostile to the US.

Trump's overtures to Russia have upended international relations in recent weeks and the potential role for Moscow in addressing Tehran disputed nuclear program links the issues more closely.

Iran has provided Russia with hundreds of drones for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine as the two powers heavily sanctioned by the United States have drawn closer.

The potential realignment of Russia and the United States in opposition to Iran's nuclear program might deprive Iran of a key ally - a possibility President Masoud Pezeshkian appeared to acknowledge on Thursday.

"If Russia, the United States, or any other country wants to take action, when our hope is in God and our reliance is on our own beliefs, we will find a way," Pezeshkian said according to a readout of his speech published on the president’s website.

"Today, someone may rebuke us, someone may not cooperate with us, or we may run into conflicts with each other. If we rely on anyone other than God, we will face problems," he added.

Kellogg said Washington's Eurasian adversaries had been disunited previously, adding, "(Trump) kept them all segmented,"

"It's sort of like the game of Whac-A-Mole, that every time a mole would come up, you whack it down. Well, all the moles came up, and now we've got to figure out, okay, how do we do this?"

"The oppression of women in Iran is not just discrimination—it is a deliberately designed, institutionalized system of domination intended to enforce the subjugation of women to maintain the state’s grip on power," said Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) director of communications, Bahar Ghandehari.

"This state-sanctioned systemic subjugation amounts to nothing less than gender apartheid, which fully meets the threshold of a crime against humanity," she added in the press release on Thursday.

Unlike racial apartheid, which is explicitly banned under international law, gender apartheid is not yet recognized as a distinct crime.

CHRI called on governments to support its inclusion in the proposed Crimes Against Humanity treaty, impose sanctions on officials enforcing discriminatory policies, and back UN investigations into rights abuses in Iran.

Earlier this year, Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi called on France's Senate to support the criminalization of gender apartheid and prioritize the fight for human and women's rights in Iran.

Tehran postponed implementing the controversial hijab law in December following a backlash from the public and the international community.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Wednesday he cannot implement the law due to popular opposition, after hardliners largely thwarted his agenda by pushing out top aides and rejecting his overtures to Washington.

The remarks, quoted by the head of his office in a post on X, were the strongest yet against a dormant law to tighten Islamic morality restrictions on women.

Popular opposition to hijab enforcement exploded in September 2022 when a young woman named Mahsa Jina Amini died in morality police custody, sparking nationwide protests dubbed the Woman Life Freedom movement.

The unrest was quashed with deadly force and opposition to the theocracy festered, but hardliners still drafted the new hijab law in May 2023.

"A group is seeking to impeach reformist ministers in the cabinet, including Labor Minister Ahmad Meydari, Health Minister Mohammad-Reza Zafarghandi, and Culture Minister Reza Salehi Amiri," said Abdolreza Sepahvand on Thursday.

Sepahvand criticized the impeachment of the economy minister, saying that "the issue of the exchange rate and the dollar was a deception" and driven by personal motived related to appointments.

He also accused certain political groups of being unwilling to compromise with the government.

Last week, President Masoud Pezeshkian's Economy Minister Abdolnaser Hemmati was impeached by Parliament while Vice President for Strategic Affairs Javad Zarif was forced to resign.