While acknowledging that the two “tracks” of securing the prisoners’ release and finalizing the nuclear deal came together, Kirby remarked, “we took full advantage of that and we make no apologies for that”.
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The excised portion of a Dec 2, 2013, briefing included a question about whether an earlier spokeswoman for the department had misled reporters about whether the United States was holding secret direct nuclear talks with Iran.
“This administration continues to endanger Americans at home and overseas by releasing known terrorists, conducting risky prisoner exchanges, and enabling the nefarious activities of a designated state sponsor of terrorism”, the Republican senator from North Carolina said in a statement.
Earlier this month, President Barack Obama denied that the payment to Iran on the same day as a hostage release was “some nefarious deal”, pointing out that the transfer was announced in January, a day after implementation of the USA nuclear deal with Tehran. “We do not pay ransom for hostages”. “He lied about the hostages, openly and blatantly”, he said at his latest rally. The equipment was never delivered after the shah’s government was overthrown in 1979 and revolutionaries took American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
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. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years”.
US officials will not say whether the $400 million payment was traceable. “By helping put together a deal that ultimately sent Dollars 400M to Iran that was likely used to fund terrorism, Clinton has proven herself unfit to be president of the United States”, Miller said.
“We do not pay ransom”, Obama himself told reporters who asked about the flight of cash to Tehran on August 4.
The administration also continued to maintain that while it negotiated the claims settlement and prisoner exchange with Iran at the same time a year ago, and they occurred on the same day, the negotiations were conducted on separate tracks and the outcomes of those negotations were in no way linked. They weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity. And it is true that the US would have had to pay the money to Iran whether there was a prisoner deal going on or not. US officials had pinned the delays on difficulties finding Rezaian’s wife and mother, and ensuring they could depart Iran with him.
Friday’s New York Times put Iran on the top of front page, left corner: “U.S”.
The administration had announced in January that Iran would receive $400 million plus $1.3 billion in interest to settle the outstanding claim. -Iranian negotiations. Psaki said, “There are times where diplomacy needs privacy”. “And it’s hard to imagine that the prisoner swap and money transfer were not part of a quid pro quo arrangement”.
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.
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. Abedini said he was told by a senior Iranian intelligence official that their departure was contingent on the movement of a second plane. -Iranian citizens who were visiting or working in Iran when they were detained. As in the main deal, the Iranians were told they’d get the money owed them if they cleaned up their act.
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The various demands led the U.S.to believe there was a possibility the American prisoners would be returned to Iran’s notorious Evin prison, the official said.
