(Bloomberg) -- Iran received a shipment of medicine from South Korea in part payment for billions of dollars owed to the Islamic Republic for oil, the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported.
The cargo took two years of negotiations and was only sent after Seoul secured approval from the U.S. government, Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a press conference in Tehran on Monday.
Mousavi said South Korea owes Tehran some $7 billion for oil received prior to U.S. halting sanctions waivers on crude purchases from Iran in April 2019. Humanitarian goods are legally exempt from U.S. sanctions.
The shipment announced on Monday is worth $500,000 and will be followed by other, larger imports, Mousavi said.
