U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has dismissed claims that the $6 billion in Iranian funds set to be unfrozen as part of a U.S. prisoner swap deal could have helped Iran fund Hamas’s attack on Israel.
“The facts are these: No U.S. taxpayer dollars were involved,” Mr. Blinken said in a statement. “These were Iranian resources that Iran had accumulated from the sale of its oil that were stuck in a bank in South Korea. They have had from day one, under our law, under our sanctions, the right to use these monies for humanitarian purposes. They were moved from one account to another in another country to facilitate that use.”
