Around $24 billion of Iranian funds frozen overseas must be released under a memorandum of understanding being negotiated with the United States, a source close to Tehran's negotiation team said, according to report by Iran's Tasnim news agency on Tuesday.

The agency said Iran's top negotiator, Mohammad Baqr Qalibaf, had travelled to Qatar to reach agreement on a mechanism to implement this demand.

“Iran’s frozen assets are to be released during the course of the negotiations, and this amount is estimated at $24 billion in accordance with the 14-point memorandum of understanding,” Tasnim quoted an unnamed source close to the negotiating team as saying.

Around half of that sum “should be made available at the start of the announcement of the memorandum,” it added.

Tasnim was the only Iranian outlet carrying the report.

The demand comes even as the US military said it launched “self-defence” strikes in southern Iran targeting missile launch sites and boats laying mines, even as President Donald Trump posted on social media that negotiations were “proceeding nicely.”

Top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf along with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati arrived in Qatar on Monday for talks .

There is no official figure for the amount of frozen Iranian assets abroad, though Iranian media have recently estimated the total at between $100 billion and $123 billion.

In 2023, $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds held in South Korean banks was transferred to Qatar pending the release of five American citizens detained in Iran.

The funds were never released as relations between Washington and Tehran deteriorated following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the Gaza war.