It’s unclear whether the Obama administration’s stance extends to governments, but on Thursday Kerry seemed to insinuate the policy applies to every hostage-taking body: “The United States does not pay ransom and does not negotiate ransoms”, he said.
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The Algiers Accord released the hostages from the U.S. embassy in Tehran, terminated U.S. sanctions imposed in response to the hostage crisis, and established the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, which was meant to resolve all outstanding legal claims between Iran and the United States after the Iranian revolution.
United States officials conceded that the Iranian negotiators involved in the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to coincide with the release of the Americans to prove a deliverable for the exchange even as they argued against the characterization of it as a ransom payment.
“This was the sort of thing that used to earn our enemies new sanctions”, said Schanzer. “And by all accounts it has worked exactly the way we said it was going to work”, said the president.
Although the administration announced in January that it would pay $1.7 billion to Iran, it did not disclose the cloak-and-dagger style of the payments.
The president said the notion of paying a ransom to Iran in that manner and so publicly “defies logic”. Those Americans were freed thanks to “the relationships forged and the diplomatic channels unlocked over the course of the nuclear talks”, Kerry preened.
Kerry also said he is unaware of any video showing the arrival of a pallet of cash in Iran, which Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump cited at a rally on Wednesday.
His response follows a report from The Wall Street Journal earlier this week on the Obama administration airlifting the money in an unmarked cargo plane in January at the same time the four USA citizens were released.
Obama on Thursday sharply defended the decision to send palettes of cash to Iran, however. We have a number of Americans being held all around the world. “And so we’ve always been aware of it, but that didn’t keep us from, frankly, sealing a deal that saved the American taxpayers a considerable sum of money”.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest denied contentions from Republicans that the money was a ransom payment.
Zeldin’s remark seems to reflect the general nature of congressional criticism of the nuclear deal that was spearheaded by President Obama. President Obama ” knowsexactly what he is doing and is playing for some other team”, the Congressman said.
Ryan said if it were a ransom payment, it would “mark another chapter in the ongoing saga of misleading the American people” to sell the worldwide agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear development program.
Asked why he trusted Russian President Vladimir Putin to cooperate, Obama replied: “I am not confident that we can trust the Russians and Vladimir Putin, which is why we have to test” them.
There was “significant litigation risk” as a result of the pending dues which could have cost the USA “billions of dollars”, he said, underlining that the U.S. does “not pay ransom for hostages”.
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“The only bit of news that is relevant on this is the fact that we paid cash”, Obama said.
