Mahmoud Vaezi, President Hassan Rouhani’s Chief of Staff, said on Wednesday that Iran had “specific methods” to circumvent United States sanctions, although this imposed higher costs. Meanwhile, Iranian diplomats around the world continue to chase payments owed to Iran but frozen by banks wary of punitive US action.

“Under normal circumstances we could have handled the exports more easily and our imports would also cost less,” said Vaezi.  He claimed Tehran was countering new US sanctions announced on October 8 targeting 18 Iranian banks in an attempt to further squeeze Iran’s international trade. “We designated alternatives and worked with money exchangers and others,” Vaezi said. “The enemy will block their operations if we talk openly about these [methods].”

During the previous round of international sanctions from 2012-2016, Iran relied on shady traders to export its oil and petrochemicals. In the process many individuals pocketed billions and some were prosecuted later.

Vaezi, who spoke to reporters after the weekly cabinet meeting, said that the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), Abdolnaser Hemmati, had returned from Iraq on Monday with “a good agreement regarding our blocked assets.” There have been reports that Iraq would make some barter payments of staple supplies.

On Wednesday Hemmati announced that funds frozen in Iraq, mainly for electricity and gas from Iran, amounted to $5 billion, which he said he “hoped” might be available soon. Hemmati said Iran’s requests for payments had met a “positive response” elsewhere too. “Traders and importers will gradually find out in which countries the assets have become available,” the CBI Governor said.

Iranian diplomats have been busy in talks with trade partners - including South Korea and Japan – to release delayed payments and replenish Iran’s foreign currency reserves, which have been depleted as the national currency the rial has lost around 87 percent of its value against the dollar since early 2018.

On Wednesday Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed by telephone money blocked in Japan with his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi. According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry website, Zarif stressed that preventing Iran from buying medicine and food was a crime against humanity.

Japan was among Iran’s top customers for crude until 2018, when Washington imposed tight restrictions on Iran’s access to the dollar, and then demanded first, in April, that Japan restrict its purchases of Iran’s oil, and then in November that it end them. While both Tokyo and Tehran have refused to quote figures, the frozen assets likely total billions of dollars.

Iran has been locked in a diplomatic row with South Korea, another past oil customer, over billions owed.  Tehran has threatened international legal action, although on September 23 Vaezi expressed optimism that South Korean banks would release the funds.

Iranian assets frozen in South Korea have been estimated at $6.5-9 billion by the Chairman of Iran and South Korea Chamber of Commerce, Hossein Tanhai. Korea has exported $500,000 worth of medicine and medical equipment to Iran since Seoul announced in April that Washington had granted it a license for some humanitarian trade with Iran.