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
