Wednesday, August 3, 2016

New Policy--American Government Now Pays For The Release Of Prisoners Under Foreign Control

$400 million sent to Iran as U.S. prisoners released, raising questions

Published: Aug 2, 2016 8:25 p.m. ET

Secret payout unrelated, U.S. officials say



AFP/Getty Images
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, center, chats with Secretary of State John Kerry in January, after he was freed by Iran.
By

JAYSOLOMON

CAROLE. LEE

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly
 organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran
 that coincided with the January release of four Americans
detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European
officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation
 afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and
 other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked
 cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S.
procured the money from the central banks of the
Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7
billion settlement the Obama administration reached with
 Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms
 deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last
monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The settlement, which resolved claims before an
 international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided
 with the formal implementation that same weekend of
 the landmark nuclear agreement reached between
 Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer
before.
“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the
 time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President
Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17 —
without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.
Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the
payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way
the various strands came together simultaneously was
 coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.
“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement
of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from
 the discussions about returning our American citizens
 home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said.
 “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.”
But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian
 negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they
 wanted the cash to show they had gained something
 tangible.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a
 fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President
Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the
 ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”
“This break with longstanding U.S. policy [not to] put a
 price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to
continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.
Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the
 Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-
Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals
 from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.

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