WASHINGTON: The United States and Qatari officials have agreed to prevent Iran from using a $6 billion humanitarian assistance fund, according to the Washington Post.

The money had been transferred to Iranian accounts in Qatar, in a US-Iran prisoner swap deal announced in recent weeks where five US detainees were released by Iran.

But Washington Post re­p­or­ted on Thursday that a decision was made to halt access to the funds, while President Joe Biden faces rising pressure on the matter given Iran’s decl­ared support to Hamas.

“We have strict oversight of the funds and we retain the right to freeze them,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a press conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday.

The White House ad­­d­ed in a separate briefing that “every single dime of that money is still sitting in a Qatari bank”.

“Not one dime of it has been spent,” according to National Security Coun­cil spokesman John Kir­by, adding that the US is watching the account cl­­o­sely but refusing to speculate about “future tra­nsactions”.

US officials said earlier that they had not seen any intelligence to show Iran was involved in planning or preparing the Hamas raid.

But Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adey­emo told Democrats in the House of Repre­sentatives that the Iran funds are not “going anywhere anytime soon”, accor­ding to the Post report.

The treasury department declined to comment on the matter.

Some US senators have called for a re-freeze of the $6bn in Iranian oil revenue as the Middle East conflict raged on. The Biden administrat­i­­­on maintains that the mo­­­­ney is restricted to hu­­m­­anitarian use.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2023