The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has determined that some Iranian funds were illegally taken by US authorities, and the US State Department has challenged that finding.
A 2016 ruling by the US Supreme Court was found to violate the 1955 Treaty of Friendship, Economic Relations and Consular Rights between the two countries, judges from the UN’s highest court say. in The Hague on Thursday. At the time, a US court ruled that victims of terrorist attacks that Washington attributed to Tehran should receive payments on certain assets held by Iranian companies.
The ICJ said Iran “has the right to compensate for the harm inflicted”, adding that the United States has 24 months to reach an agreement on a settlement amount or the court will choose one.
The judges, however, rejected Tehran’s request to release $1.75 billion in assets controlled by Iran’s Central Bank (Bank Markazi) to the United States, saying the ICJ had no jurisdiction in the case.
According to US State Department spokeswoman Vedant Patel, “We are upset that the Court has ruled that the transfer of assets from other Iranian organizations and instruments to US victims of Iran’s terrorist financing is inconsistent with the treaty”.
He stressed that the 1955 agreement “was never intended to shield Iran from having to reward American victims of its terrorist financing.” It was signed more than two decades before the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the US-backed government in Iran. In 2018, the United States withdrew from the agreement.
On the same day, Patel claimed at a press conference that the ICJ’s decision to uphold the frozen status of Bank Markazi funds was “a blow to Iran’s attempt to evade accountability. , especially to the families of American peacekeepers who were killed in the 1983 bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.”
Iran denies any involvement in the 299 deadly terrorist attacks the United States has linked to it, including the one in Lebanon’s capital that killed 241 American servicemen.
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