Sixteen countries, including Iran and China, have proposed forming a coalition to defend the UN Charter and counter unilateral sanctions and coercion. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and others are seeking support for a coalition to defend the United Nations Charter by pushing back against the use or threat of force and unilateral sanctions, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Thursday. […] Other founding members of the group are Algeria, Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, Cuba, Eritrea, Laos, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent, and the Grenadines, Syria, and Venezuela.

Media reports and sources have suggested that an Iraqi bank holding billions of dollars of Iranian funds has been allowed for the first time in years to process transactions involving the funds after gaining a waiver from US sanctions against Tehran. […] The issue of funds was also raised during a Saturday phone call between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, according to a report on the website of Rouhani’s office. Estimates suggest Iraq owes Iran $4-5 billion in unpaid dues over imports of natural gas and electricity. The two countries have negotiated on several occasions on how they can transfer the funds, including during a last week meeting between CBI and TBI chiefs in Tehran.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Iran retains access to just $8.8 billion of readily available foreign currency, roughly one-tenth of its total reserves. Without access to its reserves held in countries like Iraq, South Korea, Japan, and Germany, the central bank has struggled to forestall the weakening of Iran’s currency, which is today worth less than one-fifth of its value prior to Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This deep depreciation made imported goods more expensive, contributing to annual inflation rates of nearly 50 percent. […] In September 2019, the Trump administration designated Iran’s central bank under a terrorism authority, a move that jeopardized long-standing exemptions permitting the bank to play a crucial role in facilitating the purchase of humanitarian goods such as food and medicine. In February 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a new general license to allay those concerns. But more troubling was the intention behind the terrorism designation, which was applied to Iran’s central bank for the express purpose of making it harder for a potential Democratic administration to lift sanctions on the bank in the future. 

Unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States inflicted $1 trillion worth of damage on Iran’s economy and Tehran expects compensation, its foreign minister said. Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday after the US takes action to restore Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers through lifting sanctions, Tehran will want to negotiate on the damages it has suffered. “When we meet, we will raise compensation,” Zarif told the Iranian state-owned news network PressTV in an hour-long interview. “Whether those compensations will take the form of reparation, or whether they take the form of investment, or whether they take the form of measures to prevent a repeat of what Trump did,” he said in reference to former US President Donald Trump.