Brett McGurk, Biden’s coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, says that the deal does not fundamentally change Washington’s relationship with Tehran.
Absent an arrangement to bring these people home, they would languish in one of the world’s worst prisons for many years to come. Some of our citizens had a potential death sentence hanging over them. All of them are now safely out of Iran.
These are not frozen funds. Iran spent heavily from similar accounts — in China, Turkey, India — under the last administration. The funds in South Korea were not spent for reasons specific to South Korea. What we have agreed to do as part of this deal is to transfer the funds from South Korea to a bank in Qatar. And under terms that provide confidence, the funds will be spent only on a limited category of humanitarian trade: food, medicine and agricultural products. That’s it.
The notion that Iran was deterred before President Biden entered office is baseless. President Biden very early ordered airstrikes against the groups attacking our troops. This past March, after a long period with no attacks we tragically saw the first American killed in an Iranian-sponsored attack, in Syria. The president immediately ordered an attack against a facility used by the IRGC in Syria. There have been no attacks since. And we are fully prepared to respond, should that change.
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