“This wasn’t some nefarious deal”, Obama said at a press conference at the Pentagon. He defended the transaction as evidence that the nuclear accord with Iran has allowed for progress on other matters.
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President Barack Obama rejected claims that the United States had paid a ransom for the release of Americans held by Iran.
The $400 million was from a trust fund set up by Iran in the 1970s to purchase military equipment from the U.S. In 1990, the Clinton administration pledged that money to Americans who had won legal claims against Iran.
The Obama administration’s payment of 400 million in cash to Iran, that coincided with the release of American prisoners, was not essentially a ransom payment.
Obama pointed out that the information about the payment was available earlier in the year and that “the only bit of news that is relevant on this is the fact that we paid cash” because of sanctions against the Iranian banking system.
The payment happened years after Clinton left and the Obama administration insists the payment was for a canceled contract, not for ransom, but Team Trump isn’t buying it.
“The U.S. remains prepared to work with Russian Federation to try to reduce the violence and strengthen our efforts against ISIL and Al-Qaida in Syria, but so far Russian Federation has failed to take the necessary steps”, Obama said.
That same day, the Obama administration announced a prisoner swap between the USA and Iran, in which we traded seven Iranian criminals and removed another 14 from an Interpol “most wanted” list.
“That as a outcome of working its way through the global tribunal, it was the assessment of our lawyers, that we were now at a point where there was significant litigation risk and we could end up costing ourselves billions of dollars”.
“We believe this agreement for the $400 million that was paid in interest and settlement of the case actually saved the American taxpayer potentially billions of dollars”, Kerry said. “Those families know we have a policy that we don’t pay ransom”.
The money was procured from central banks in Switzerland and the Netherlands, official said, and an unmarked cargo plane loaded with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies were flown to Iran.
“We do not pay ransom for hostages”.
Trump has sought to make the Iran deal – which the administration had previously announced in January – into a political plus at a rocky moment for his campaign.
“I have said the agreement has made the world safer, but it has to be enforced”.
The transfer was the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement between the US and Iran for an old arms deal gone awry. “The reason is because we couldn’t send them a check, and we couldn’t wire the money”.
The payment, Obama said, was the result of a decades-old dispute between the two nations that was litigated and settled in an global court.
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“What we have is the manufacturing of outrage in a story that we disclosed in January”, Mr. Obama said at a Pentagon news conference.
