“The United States does not pay ransom and does not negotiate ransoms”, Kerry told reporters in Buenos Aires two weeks ago.
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Yesterday, the Obama administration finally admitted that its $400 million cash payment to Iran was contingent on the release of a group of American prisoners.
But on Thursday State Department spokesman John Kirby essentially confirmed a Wall Street Journal report that Iranian officials in Geneva weren’t allowed to take custody of the cash until a plane carrying three of the Americans was airborne.
President Barack Obama’s administration revealed on Thursday that it paid $400 million to the government of Iran in January contingent on the release of American pastor Saeed Abedini and three other USA citizens, but insisted that the payment could not be called a “ransom”.
It’s disappointing that President Barack Obama was not fully honest with the American people earlier this month when a controversy arose over a $400 million payment made in January by USA officials to Iran.
18 that the timing of a $400 million payment to Iran in January was linked to the release of four US hostages.
The acknowledgement kicked off a torrent of Republican criticism, who declared it evidence of a quid pro quo that undermined America’s longstanding opposition to ransom payments.
“I certainly would agree that this particular fact is not something that we’ve talked about in the past”, he said.
“But we wouldn’t be having this discussion if the Islamic Republic were a government that abided by worldwide norms and did not arbitrarily hold hostages as bargaining chips”, he said.
“It’s time for the Obama White House to drop the charade and admit it paid a ransom to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism”. Iran wasn’t using the hostages to get more from the United States than it was entitled to; the United States was using Iran’s money – funds Iran had paid for weapons that the USA never delivered – to ensure that Iran fulfilled its promise to release Americans who shouldn’t have been held.
President Barack Obama announced in January the release of the money, frozen since 1981, an action ruled illegal by the US-Iran Hague Claims Tribunal, plus 1.3 billion dollars interest.
He said nowhere in the discussions about getting the USA hostages was there talk about “paying ransom” to get them back. It was money the United States owed Iran from a failed arms deal that predated the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran that brought the current government into power, the White House said. “It was money that they were going to get back anyway”, State Department spokesman John Kirby said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”. They weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity. State Department officials have insisted that they were upfront with Congress.
The call was an attempt to help explain the way a $400 million cash payment – part of a settlement in another dispute – was handled as leverage for the prisoners. He added that “terrorist groups and our adversaries around the world” know the USA will pay “cold, hard cash for hostages”, Cotton said.
A ruling on the military fund was expected soon, the official said, as Iran asked previous year for the tribunal to hear its case and Tehran and Washington had been negotiating proposals for a hearing.
It was the first installment on a $1.7 billion settlement stemming from the failed USA weapons pact with Iran in 1979 just before its last monarch, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was toppled. -Iranian negotiations. Psaki said, “There are times where diplomacy needs privacy”.
The second American official argued that if there was any quid pro quo, it was the exchange of USA and Iranian prisoners.
Obama has said his negotiators secured the USA a good deal on a busy diplomatic weekend that also included finalizing the seven-nation nuclear accord. While he refused to provide a “tick-tock” of the release of the money and the prisoners, “they came together near simultaneously”, Kirby said.
“We actually had diplomatic negotiations and conversations with Iran for the first time in several decades”, Obama said August 5, meaning “our ability to clear accounts on a number of different issues at the same time converged”.
The administration said the legal dispute could have cost the USA some $10 billion without January’s settlement.
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According to State Department spokesman John Kirby negotiations over the payment, which stemmed from a legal case over Iranian funds frozen by the US, and negotiations over the release of USA citizens were conducted separately, but that the payment was used as leverage.
