re\u00adp\u00ador\u00adted<\/a> on Thursday that a decision was made to halt access to the funds, while President Joe Biden faces rising pressure on the matter given Iran\u2019s decl\u00adared support to Hamas.<\/p>\n\u201cWe have strict oversight of the funds and we retain the right to freeze them,\u201d US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a press conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The White House ad\u00ad\u00add\u00aded in a separate briefing that \u201cevery single dime of that money is still sitting in a Qatari bank\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot one dime of it has been spent,\u201d according to National Security Coun\u00adcil spokesman John Kir\u00adby, adding that the US is watching the account cl\u00ad\u00ado\u00adsely but refusing to speculate about \u201cfuture tra\u00adnsactions\u201d.<\/p>\n
US officials said earlier that they had not seen any intelligence to show Iran was involved in planning or preparing the Hamas raid.<\/p>\n
But Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adey\u00ademo told Democrats in the House of Repre\u00adsentatives that the Iran funds are not \u201cgoing anywhere anytime soon\u201d, accor\u00adding to the Post<\/em> report.<\/p>\nThe treasury department declined to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n
Some US senators have called for a re-freeze of the $6bn in Iranian oil revenue as the Middle East conflict raged on. The Biden administrat\u00adi\u00ad\u00ad\u00adon maintains that the mo\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00adney is restricted to hu\u00ad\u00adm\u00ad\u00adanitarian use.<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON: The United States and Qatari officials have agreed to prevent Iran from using a $6 billion humanitarian assistance fund, according to the Washington Post. The money had been transferred to Iranian accounts in Qatar, in a US-Iran prisoner swap deal announced in recent weeks where five US detainees were released by Iran. But Washington […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/13092216621f87c.jpg?r=092236","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t