Free Republic

The Trump administration is working with Qatar on a mechanism that would let Iran tap roughly $6 billion in frozen oil revenue to buy food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods, an early financial sweetener under the 14-point memorandum of understanding signed Wednesday with Tehran, people familiar with the talks said. The plan, which is still unfinished and requires Iranian sign-off, would route purchases through Iran's central bank and could serve as a template for unlocking a slice of the roughly $100 billion in Iranian assets around the world.The arrangement, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, would draw down a...

Iran has agreed not to build a nuclear weapon and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, in return the US will release some $25 billion in frozen assets as part of a President Trump-brokered peace deal, according to details released by Tehran on Sunday.Washington and Tehran are expected to electronically sign a memorandum of understanding on Sunday following a virtual meeting, which will set the table for negotiations over a longer-term deal on Iran’s nuclear program, Axios reported. On Saturday, US President Donald Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said a deal would be signed on Sunday and would...

The United Arab Emirates has agreed to unlock billions of dollars for Iran, four sources ​said, in a tactical shift after weeks of Iranian attacks on the wealthy Gulf Arab state during the U.S.-Israeli war with the Islamic Republic. (snip) Two regional sources told Reuters the UAE had agreed to release a total of $10 billion, more than $3 billion of which had already been delivered. Two other sources with knowledge of the arrangement put the total funds involved at $20 billion, adding that the move had been agreed in return for a ​halt to Iranian attacks on the UAE....

An Iranian state news outlet said Friday that an agreement with the U.S., which President Trump touted the previous day as a "great settlement of the war," includes the U.S. releasing $24 billion of frozen Iranian financial assets. Iran's semi-official Mehr News agency published what it said was a draft of the 14-point agreement Friday. It includes a stipulation that Iran's assets will be released during a 60-day extension of the current ceasefire, which would begin as soon as the deal comes into effect. Iran's Foreign Ministry cautioned earlier that the regime had yet to fully commit to the agreement....

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is slamming President Donald Trump for what he calls a reckless departure from the “smart diplomacy” of the Obama era, specifically criticizing Trump’s decision to abandon the Iran nuclear deal and launch attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. During an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Jeffries pointed to the controversial Obama administration strategy, which he called “successful,” that included sending pallets of cash to Tehran as a model of diplomacy. “We need the case to be made by the administration to the American people as to how to best accomplish the objective of preventing...

President Biden is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while in France for the 80th anniversary of D-Day this week. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan previewed the meeting to reporters, which comes ahead of the Ukraine peace summit that the president is skipping. “While he’s in Normandy, he’ll have the opportunity to sit down with President Zelensky and have an engagement with him to talk about the state of play in Ukraine and how we can continue to deepen our support for Ukraine,” Sullivan said in a briefing on Air Force One en route to France...

Iranian-backed Iraqi militias were likely behind a deadly rocket barrage on a U.S.-led coalition base in northern Iraq in February. According to NBC the attack featured at least 14 107mm rockets, a favored weapon supplied by Iran to the militias. But this did not dissuade Joe Biden from releasing $3 billion of Iran’s fund in Iraq, Oman and South Korea. It’s like Obama 2.0 Al-Arabya reported: [The United States has agreed to the release of $3 billion in Iranian funds that have been frozen in Iraq, Oman and South Korea due to Washington’s sanctions, Iranian trade official Hamid Hosseini told...