Iran says US seized $3.5B of its assets in “highway robbery”
By Trend
The US government seized $3.5 billion assets of the Central Bank of Iran in an act that can surely be called a highway robbery, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a conference of Iranian-European bankers, Mehr news agency reported April 29.
A Luxembourg court in March said that a 2016 verdict to freeze the assets of the $1.6 billion of CBI in the country was legal. The decision came following a legal bid by the US claiming compensation from Iran for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and their families over the Islamic Republic’s alleged role in the terror attacks.
Also in 2016 the US Supreme Court supported the statements of Congress and President Barack Obama that Iran "was financially responsible for the 1983 bombing that killed 241 Marines at their barracks in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.”
Iran had denied any involvement in any of the bombings. Families of the Marines and victims of other attacks that courts have linked to Iran are allowed to seize some $2 billion in assets held in New York’s Citibank belonging to the Central Bank of Iran.
Zarif also said Iran’s financial market, including the money, capital, and insurance markets were the key targets of the sanctions “devised by people who aimed at crippling Iran’s economy.”
The outcome of this was the closure of places that were going to receive finance on one side, and on the other side unbridled growth of corruption that resulted from lack of transparency as Iran tried to bypass the sanctions, the minister noted.
Zarif also accused the US of failing to uphold its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and expressed hope that Iran’s European partners overlook minor obstacles and push for long-term gains by establishing trade ties with Tehran.
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