U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said during a news briefing Thursday that the government used a $400 million payment to Iran in January as “leverage” to make sure Tehran followed through on its promise to release three detained American citizens.
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State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the negotiations to return the money – originally from a 1979 failed military equipment deal made between Iran and the USA – were conducted separately from negotiations to free the four prisoners. “It’s already publicly known that we returned to Iran its USD400 million in that same time period as part of The Hague settlement agreement”, he said.
Three of the five prisoners, including Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, were part of a prisoner exchange that followed the lifting of most worldwide sanctions against Iran following a nuclear deal in 2015.
“The State Department has just confirmed what I’ve said repeatedly: no matter how many ways the Obama administration tries to spin it, this was a $400 million cash ransom payment to Iran”. 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.
“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”. “Those families know we have a policy that we don’t pay ransom”.
The State Department has not given a precise timeline of when the cash was delivered to the Iranians and when the flight bearing the money took off from Geneva.
Kirby spoke a day after The Wall Street Journal reported new details of the crisscrossing planes on that day.
Indeed, one of the captives, Pastor Saeed Abedini, says he and the others were kept waiting at the airport for almost 24 hours; a senior Iranian intelligence official told him their release was dependent on the arrival of “a second plane”.
“If it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck”, Sen.
Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska also issued a statement today after the comments from the State Department.
“Eight years of politicians like President Obama, Hillary Clinton and Senator Feingold have left Americans less safe, less secure and looking for stronger leadership”, the Republican Party of Wisconsin said.
Some observers, however, said Thursday they don’t see the distinction. In January, five American prisoners were released as Washington granted clemency to seven Iranians and withdrew arrest warrants for 14 others. Abedini said he was told by a senior Iranian intelligence official that their departure was contingent on the movement of a second plane. The US and Iran have been negotiating the Iranian claim to the money since 1981, and Kerry said that negotiation was separate from the nuclear deal and discussions about Americans held in Iran. “This was announced by the president of the United States himself at the same time”.
The lawmaker suggested that the Senate will hold hearings on the matter, saying when lawmakers return to Washington next month, “the administration will no longer be able to hide from giving Americans straight answers”.
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“The administration clearly has a lot of explaining to do”, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the House Financial Services Committee chairman, said.
