The Obama administration paid Iran’s regime nearly $2billion in a ‘ransom payment’ to release U.S. prisoners after at least two years of secret talks between Washington and Tehran, The Mail Online wrote on Thursday.
Five prisoners were freed by Iran’s regime in January this year, with a $1.7billion payment heading from the U.S. to Iran that day, according to official documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
At least two years of secret talks led to the deal that officials claim is a settlement relating to one of more than 1,000 long-standing legal disputes that began after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Five U.S. citizens imprisoned in Iran were released in a landmark prisoner swap in January. In return, seven Iranian detainees in the U.S. were freed.
It later emerged that $1.7billion was sent to Tehran that day, with critics branding the money a ‘ransom payment,’ the Mail Online wrote.
U.S. Republican Congressman Michael Pompeo asked the State Department to explain the payment, and has finally received a response.
The letter does not address allegations that the payment related to the release of the prisoners, but does say that the Obama administration first began talks with the Iranian regime’s officials over outstanding legal claims leveled against the U.S. by Iran’s regime in 2014.
These date back to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which led to the U.S. cancelling an arms deal and eventually ended with the Iranian hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
The legal row over the scrapped arms deal led to more than 1,000 claims against the U.S., with American officials keen to settle as many of those out of court as possible.
Many of them are still in the process of being settled and it is just one of these disputes that the State Department claims led to the $1.7billion payment.
The response says that there could yet be more payments from Washington to Tehran as more legal tussles are brought to a close.
The secret talks between the two countries were underway in June 2014 at the latest, and continued through 2015 until the prisoner swap in 2016.
‘We are confident that this was a good settlement for the American taxpayer,’ the State Department said.
‘The United States is continuing to vigorously litigate these claims at the (Hague’s Iran-U.S. Claims) Tribunal, but is also open to discussing further settlements of claims with Iran, as we have done throughout the life of the Tribunal, with the aim of resolving them in furtherance of U.S. interests,’ the letter states.
‘It would not be in the interest of the United States to discuss further details of the settlement of these claims in an unclassified letter due to the ongoing litigation at the Tribunal.
‘However, we would be prepared to provide a closed briefing on such issues if it would be useful to there.’
The settlement in January included a $400million payment plus $1.3billion in interest, all from the U.S. taxpayer’s pocket.
‘When Iran releases American hostages, and then, on that same day, President Obama announces he is paying Iran $1.7billion, Congress of course has to ask the hard questions,’ a source told the Free Beacon.
‘And when the Obama administration admits that over $1billion in taxpayer money is going to the Iranian regime, Congress is obligated to respond.
‘The State Department has ducked and dodged–providing a history lesson on international tribunals, focused on actions decades ago, instead of addressing dangerous misdeeds that were potentially just committed. That is suspicious.’
The payments are not related to the controversial nuclear deal between the Iranian regime and the U.S., which saw the U.S. government release $150billion in frozen Iranian assets.
