A spokesman for the state department insisted the payment eventually made in August was not a ransom, and that negotiations over the release of four USA prisoners were conducted separately from the settlement of a decades-old account pertaining to a failed arms deal with Iran. “It thanked Iran for its conduct in illegally detaining 10 American sailors in a flagrant violation of global law”, McCain said.
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“Hillary Clinton and Democrats across the country should immediately condemn this ransom payment and reverse their support for the unsafe nuclear deal with Iran”, RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said in a statement Thursday.
“Our top priority was getting the Americans home”, an unnamed US official told the newspaper. Further, President Obama never disclosed the $400 million cash payment, which was exchanged by the Swiss government to allude prohibitions in USA law to transfer such payments to Iran, when he announced the Iran nuclear deal on January 17.
On the campaign trail, Trump sought once again to blame the incident on his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on August 18, though the former Secretary of State was not involved in last year’s negotiations with Iran. “Feingold should finally stand with Wisconsin, separate himself from the risky Obama-Hillary foreign policy, and condemn the President for lying to the American people”.
As the Washington Post reported, Kirby’s remarks marked the first time the administration has “acknowledged there was any degree of linkage between separate negotiations for the release of five Americans, including two who left Iran independently, and money paid to Iran in foreign currency piled onto pallets aboard an Iran Air cargo plane in Geneva”.
Kirby was responding to a report in the Wall Street Journal that the US wouldn’t let Iran take control of the money – which the country was owed as part of a $1.7 billion settlement over a long-running dispute – until a plane carrying the American prisoners had left Iran in January.
State Department spokesman John Kirby candidly confessed that the USA withheld delivery of the cash until the American citizens had left Iran.
The remarks are the first from the USA government to establish a clear connection between the payment and the detainees’ release.
Back on January 17, a senior administration official told reporters on a background call that the USA was “settling a longstanding Iranian government claim against the United States government” regarding a shah-era contract in the Foreign Military Sales program.
The money comes from an account used by the Iranian government to buy U.S. military equipment in the days of Iran’s shah. The US never delivered the equipment to Iran because the Shah was overthrown.
“Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and this ransom payment gives the regime both the resources and the incentive to target more Americans”. “By helping put together a deal that ultimately sent Dollars 400M to Iran that was likely used to fund terrorism, Clinton has proven herself unfit to be president of the United States”, Miller said.
The White House announced in January that the US would pay Iran$400 million in the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the USA and Iran reached to resolve a legal dispute over the failed arms deal. US officials have said they expected an imminent ruling on the claim and settled with Tehran instead.
The same day that the money was delivered, Iran freed three U.S. citizens, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. Iranian-Americans Amir Hekmati, Jason Rezaian, Saeed Abedini and Nosratollah Khosravi were released in exchange of release seven Iranians who were detained for sanctions violations. USA officials had pinned the delays on difficulties finding Rezaian’s wife and mother, and ensuring they could depart Iran with him.
House and Senate Republicans have peppered the administration for more details about the transaction.
Republican lawmakers pounced on the news Thursday, describing the cash transfer as a ransom.
“The President owes the American people a full accounting of his actions and the unsafe precedent he has set”, Ryan added in his statement. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.).
The House Financial Services Committee hasn’t yet decided whether to hold hearings.
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The first installment of that payment came in a $400 million cash delivery made up of euros and Swiss francs.
