Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, during a press conference this Thursday in Tel Aviv.POOL (via Portal)
The United States reached a behind-the-scenes agreement with Qatar to block Iran’s access to the $6 billion humanitarian account that Tehran has in banks in the emirate as the conflict in the Middle East escalates after the attack of Hamas against the country of Israel. This fund was made available to the Islamic regime, the major supporter of Hamas, in September as part of a prisoner exchange agreement between Washington and Tehran.
The Undersecretary of the Treasury, Wally Ademo, informed the Democratic members of the House of Representatives in a closed meeting, as participants in the meeting told US media. The US government has not officially confirmed the measure, although Secretary of State Blinken reminded in a press conference in Jerusalem, where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that “we retain oversight of this account and have the right to freeze it.” Blinken, who arrived in Israel on Wednesday, also plans visits to Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
This $6 billion from Iranian oil revenue remained frozen in South Korean bank accounts. The agreement, reached in September after two years of negotiations, allowed five US citizens held in Iranian prisons to return to their country and allowed them to transfer funds to the account in Qatar. There Tehran could use these funds to buy food, agricultural products, medicine and other humanitarian goods.
Washington announced on Thursday that Iran has since stopped using that account. “Not a single penny has moved,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a press conference at the White House. Kirby stressed that there was no way this money would end up in Iranian hands. “Only suppliers of humanitarian products approved by us would receive it, who would send these goods directly to Iran for the benefit of the Iranian people.”
Republican opposition lawmakers have criticized the U.S. government for allowing Iran access to those funds and accused the White House of a permissive stance toward the country, which supports Hamas and other radical Islamic groups in the Middle East. In return, the Biden administration recalls that the opening of the Iran humanitarian account in Qatar was a decision of the previous administration of Donald Trump.
Since the crisis erupted last Saturday, when Hamas unexpectedly launched its biggest attack on Israel in half a century from Gaza, Washington has firmly sided with the Netanyahu government, promising “everything necessary” to defend it . Their priorities also include preventing the conflict from spreading beyond the borders of Gaza and Israel. In particular, he fears that Tehran could exploit the unrest for its own advantage in the region.
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So far, he emphasizes, he has no “concrete evidence” that suggests Iran could be behind Hamas’ actions. According to a report from its intelligence services, Tehran greeted initial news of the Islamic group’s attack on the Israeli population with surprise. At the same time, however, he insists that the Ayatollah regime is “complicit” with Hamas, which it supports with training, weapons supplies, technology transfer and the provision of funds.
The United States has sent its largest aircraft carrier, the Gerald Ford, to the eastern Mediterranean, and a second, the Eisenhower, is underway as a deterrent gesture. On Wednesday, at a meeting with representatives of American Jewish communities, Biden for the first time explicitly linked the presence of these ships with a specific warning to Iran. “We have moved a fleet of aircraft carriers and sent more fighter jets to this region, and we have made it clear to the Iranians: Be careful,” the White House tenant said.
Washington, which is negotiating the opening of a humanitarian corridor between Gaza and Egypt, also announced this Thursday that the number of American victims of the Hamas attacks had already risen to 27 people, while another fourteen of this nationality were still missing. The extremist militia also holds “a handful” of Americans among the hostages it captured in its attack, the White House has acknowledged. For its part, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that it will charter charter flights to facilitate repatriation of its citizens who wish to be repatriated from Israel and the Palestinian territories.
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