The funds had been deposited in the United States to pay for a shipment of American fighter jets, which never went through. “It’s a sad day when Iranian officials appear to be more honest than our own president”, Rubio wrote in a blistering statement.
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It isn’t hard to draw conclusions based on the proximity of those two events.
Republicans, including Donald Trump, the presidential nominee, have described the payment as a ransom for the release of five American prisoners released at the same time in exchange for Iranian prisoners in the United States.
To summarize, Kirby just admitted what he had denied.
The story was given prominence on most news sites and in newspapers.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration said Thursday that a $400 million cash payment to Iran seven months ago was contingent on the release of a group of American prisoners.
“Because we had concerns that Iran may renege on the prisoner release … we of course naturally … sought to retain maximum leverage until after the Americans were released”, spokesman John Kirby said. “That was our top priority”, Kirby told reporters.
Recent reporting by The Wall Street Journal has established that the planeload of cash – big bundles of euro and Swiss franc notes – sent to Iran that day was timed to assure the American citizens, aboard a plane leaving Iran, were released first, before Iranian officials could put their hands on the money.
How does this square with what the Obama administration said before?
Back on August 3, after the Wall Street Journal revealed the $400 million payment, Kirby said the two matters were “completely separate”.
The $400 million was part of a claim made during the U.S. -Iran Claims Tribunal that began in 1981.
It was the first time that the administration acknowledged linkage between the payment and the prisoner release.
A chorus of Republican critics say the payment was ransom and the transaction will encourage others to take Americans hostage in hopes of payment. The settlement, which was resolved before an worldwide tribune, occurred on the same weekend the United States and other global powers brokered a nuclear deal with Iran.
The remarks are the first from the US government to establish a clear connection between the payment and the detainees’ release. At the time, the State Department was against the lawsuit, claiming it would make worldwide relations hard.
“The president spoke to this settlement”.
The administration is indeed walking a very fine line here.
The Obama administration has maintained that negotiation over the funds and the prisoners were conducted on separate tracks and were in no way linked.
The detained Americans were released in January in exchange for Iranians detained in the United States for sanctions violations, and was at the time touted by the U.S. as a sign of warming relations resulting from the agreement on Iran’s nuclear agreement.
The President added that the open channels led to the “ability to clear accounts on a number of different issues at the same time converged”. Given the lame spin they were offering it’s not hard to see why.
The White House has insisted that the payment wasn’t a ransom.
“Technically, the State Department may be right”, Baer told The Washington Post. “And the notion that we would somehow start now, in this high-profile way, and announce it to the world, even as we’re looking in the faces of other hostage families whose loved ones are being held hostage, and saying to them we don’t pay ransom, defies logic”.
The acknowledgment by Kirby on Thursday touched off a torrent of criticism.
Mr. Kirby said repeatedly that the payment didn’t amount to ransom. “I get that. But that doesn’t change the facts”.
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“We call them terrorists and I don’t believe they are going to use this money for building orphanages, which I was arrested for, but I prefer that the politicians answer this question”, Abedini said.
