Iran to receive frozen funds next week

Iran will next week receive the fifth installment of the $4.2-billion frozen funds it was promised last year as part of an interim nuclear deal with six world powers, a senior Iranian nuclear negotiator said Friday.

"As of today, four out of the eight instalments of our country's frozen assets have been released, and (Iran's) unlocked assets will add up to $2.65 billion after the fifth tranche is released next week," Press TV quoted Hamid Ba'eedinejad, director general for political and international affairs at Iran's foreign ministry, as saying.

Ba'eedinejad heads the expert-level team at the nuclear negotiations with the six world powers -- the US, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany.

An interim nuclear deal in the Swiss city of Geneva was reached Nov 24, 2013, under which Iran agreed to limit certain aspects of its nuclear programme as a confidence-building measure and the world powers undertook to provide Iran with some relief with regard to economic sanctions imposed on it.