The US said on Thursday that it renewed a 120-day sanction waiver that allows Iraq to buy electricity from Iran.
It said that "no money is permitted to enter Iran under the terms of this waiver."
"These are waivers that have been regularly issued to Iraq, going back to 2018, under a previous administration, this is now the 21st time that this particular waiver has been issued," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
"It's important to realize how this money has been used. Number one, that no money is permitted to enter Iran under the terms of this waiver," he said.
Stressing that all the funds are held in restricted acounts, Miller said they can only be "used for transactions for the purchase of food medicine, medical devices, agricultural products and other non-sanctionable transactions."
He said the waiver is for Iraq to continue to get electricity from Iran and that Iraq has been making real progress on its path toward energy sufficiency.