US Says $400M Payment Was Contingent on Release of Prisoners

[Zomis]

Washington (AP) -- The State Department says a $400 million cash payment to Iran was contingent on the release of American prisoners.

Spokesman John Kirby says negotiations over the United States' returning Iranian money from a decades-old account was conducted separately from the prisoner talks. But he says the U.S. withheld delivery of the cash as leverage until the U.S. citizens had left Iran.

Both events occurred Jan. 17.

Kirby spoke after The Wall Street Journal reported that the departures of the crisscrossing planes were linked.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-say...195006535.html

Where are all the people saying this wasn't a ransom it was just a coincident?

[kail]

Political coverup as usual.

[Arthas242]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-say...195006535.html

Where are all the people saying this wasn't a ransom it was just a coincident?

it's called the word game.


they do exactly what they are not suppose to and call it something else and when you ask them why they did it with the old word they say they didn't do it when they did.

[Polyxo]

That sounds like the opposite. The US ransoming the cash for the release of prisoners.

[Jotaux]

So the money was Iran's in the first place?

[Tradewind]

"Leverage" is not the same as paying a ransom.

[Moozart]

So the money was Iran's in the first place?

according to out national Debt all our money belongs to some country or another

[Polyxo]

So the money was Iran's in the first place?

Well, yes. The US (and other countries) will freeze the assets of nationals from country x over any number of political spats. Releasing those assets is often a part of normalization of relations.

[Draco-Onis]

it's called the word game.


they do exactly what they are not suppose to and call it something else and when you ask them why they did it with the old word they say they didn't do it when they did.

It's called reading facts like a normal person, fact the US had to make the payment since it was already agreed to second leveraging something you had to do to get what you want faster is called good negotiating. A ransom would mean paying money they did not have to in order to get the prisoners.

[madethisfor1post]

It sped up the prisoner release.

Iran got money it was owed. US got people released sooner than expected.

Seems like the US won here.

[Kraddark]

Seriously....guys...it was their money.

We can't just keep other people's money. It wasn't a "payment." If I offered to sell you shoes. Took your money then did not give you the shoes...I'm expected to give you back your money. If we start just taking money from other countries no country will want to deal with us.

[Fahrenheit]

What's not to understand.
We owed them money for decades from materials not supplied.
They had political prisoners.
We were cleaning house of outstanding issues with Iran with the nuke deal.
We said we aren't giving you back the money we owe you until you release the prisoners.
They acquiesced and released the prisoners, we refunded their money.

[Hiricine]

This just in US government endorses ransoming of hostages with 400M payment.

[Annoying]

There's a thread about this already:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ans-Were-Freed

Closing this.