Iran general: US paid Tehran $1.7 billion to release ‘spies’
US denies claim by Basij officer that settlement of suit dating to 1979 Islamic revolution bought return of 4 US prisoners
An Iranian general this week claimed that the $400 million debt and $1.3 billion in interest the US has agreed to pay Iran from a pre-revolution international legal tribunal, was actually a ransom to secure the release of dual citizens recently freed by Iran as part of a prisoner swap.
The claim was vigorously denied by the US.
Tehran last week released four Iranian-American dual nationals, some of whom had been held for years, in a prisoner swap, while a fifth American was freed separately. In exchange, Washington granted clemency to seven Iranians. And it withdrew international arrest notices for 14 Iranians.
“This money was returned for the freedom of the US spy and it was not related to the (nuclear) negotiations,” Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a brigadier general in Iran’s Basij Force, said Wednesday. The Basij is under the command of the Revolutionary Guards.
“The annulment of sanctions against Iran’s Bank Sepah and reclaiming of $1.7 million of Iran’s frozen assets after 36 years showed that the US doesn’t understand anything but the language of force,” Naqdi added.
The repayment, which settles a suit brought under an international legal tribunal, is separate from the tens of billions of dollars in frozen foreign accounts that Iran can now access after the end of nuclear sanctions. The State Department said the claim was in the amount of a $400 million, was from a trust fund used by Iran to purchase military equipment from the United States prior to the break in diplomatic ties, plus $1.3 billion in interests.
While US Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this week defended Sunday’s announcement to repay the 35-year-old trust as a “fair settlement,” State Department officials vehemently denied the money was a bid to buy the freedom of the US-Iranian prisoners.
“There was no bribe, there was no ransom, there was nothing paid to secure the return of these Americans who were, by the way, not spies,” Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner said Wednesday.
The prisoner swap came as the UN nuclear watchdog confirmed Iran had put a nuclear bomb beyond its immediate reach and the US and EU lifted their most draconian economic sanctions.
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and Marine veteran Amir Hekmati and pastor Saeed Abedini were reunited with their families at a US military base in Germany on Monday.
The fourth freed Iranian-American, named as Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, apparently chose to remain in Iran. Very little is publicly known about him.
The American released separately, Matthew Trevithick, returned home to Massachusetts on Sunday for an emotional reunion with his family after 40 days in prison, according to The Boston Globe.
His detention was not publicly acknowledged until his release.
AFP contributed to this report
