In the run-up to the nuclear deal between Iran and the six world powers, there was talk of more than $100 billion of Iranian assets being unfrozen as a result of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Nonetheless, on July 15, Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), announced that the total amount of “usable funds” that will be released will be “$23 billion belonging to the CBI and about $6 to $7 billion belonging to the government.” Two days later, Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghaddam, a leading member of the Majles Plan and Budget Commission, put the total figure at $130 billion. It is evident that such divergences will cause confusion.

The discrepancy created such controversy that Seif wrote a public letter to President Hassan Rouhani to explain the details, underlining that “though the total amount of foreign reserves is $107 billion, only $26 billion will be usable.”

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This article was written by Bijan Khajehpour for Al-Monitor on July 29, 2015. Bijan Khajehpour is a managing partner at Atieh International, the Vienna-based international arm of the Atieh Group of Companies, a group of strategic consulting firms based in Tehran, Iran.