“He said we don’t pay ransom, but he did”.
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The money was already due to Iran as part of a settlement over a decades-old failed arms deal – also reached in January – but State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed it was withheld until the prisoners had left Iran.
This comes two weeks after President Obama insisted the US did not pay Iran a “ransom” to secure the release of the Americans.
However, he maintained that the USA withheld the delivery of the cash as leverage until Iran permitted the Americans to leave the country. First, Kirby argues this wasn’t a ransom because it is “Iran’s money”. -Iranian prisoner exchange on the same day.
The first installment of that payment came in a $400 million cash delivery made up of euros and Swiss francs.
“We felt it would be imprudent not to consider some leverage in trying to make sure our Americans got out”, he said during a news briefing Thursday.
“We were completely open with everybody about it, and it’s interesting to me that this suddenly became a story again”, Obama said during a news conference at the Pentagon on August 3.
“The president and his administration have been misleading us since January about whether he ransomed the freedom of the Americans unjustly imprisoned in Iran”, House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement.
In April, the US Supreme Court ruled that Iran’s $2 billion of assets held in an American bank be turned over to families of those killed in a 1983 bombing in Beirut and other attacks which Tehran says it has nothing to do with. The two sides have wrangled over that account and numerous other financial claims ever since.
US officials will not say whether the $400 million payment was traceable. “We do not pay ransom for hostages”. Yes we delayed payment until the hostages were released, but it wasn’t a ransom. But he said the USA withheld delivery of the cash as leverage until the US citizens had left Iran. They weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity. Iranian officials themselves have referred to the money-hostage swap as “ransom”.
The U.S. demanded Iran hand over all of the Americans, including Rezaian’s wife, who is an Iranian citizen. Iran had lived up to its commitment by repaying $2.5 billion awarded for claims by USA citizens and companies.
President Obama and his lieutenants clearly have egg on their faces – and rightfully so after testing our collective intelligence by insisting that there was absolutely no connection between the sequence of events.
All of the approximately 4,700 private USA claims filed against the Government of Iran at the Tribunal were resolved during the first 20 years of the Tribunal, resulting in payments of more than $2.5 billion in awards to US nationals and companies through that process.
The payment, part of a $1.7 billion settlement of a decades-long legal dispute before an global tribunal in The Hague, was announced on January 17, a day after Tehran freed the four Americans and on the same weekend that United Nations sanctions against Iran were lifted.
“We were able to conclude multiple strands of diplomacy within a 24 hour period, including implementation of the nuclear deal, the prisoner talks and a settlement of an outstanding Hague tribunal claim”, Mr Kirby said.
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Some Iranian officials immediately linked the payment to the release of four Americans, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who had been held in Iranian prisons. “I am outraged that we can not rely on our own President to tell us the truth”.
