Tel Aviv, Oct 14 (IANS): US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said there is no "direct evidence" linking Iran to last Saturday's attack on Israel by Hamas, even though they are known to have a close relationship. Also, Iran has not accessed even a single dollar of the $6.1 billion of oil revenue un-freezed by the US through Qatar to Iran.
Blinken said Iran has had a long standingrelationship with the Palestinian militant group (training and supplying arms), this is one of the reasons that the US has levied sanctions on Iranian individuals and companies over 400 times since President Joe Biden assumed office, Blinken told NBC's "Nightly News".
"Hamas wouldn't be Hamas without the support over many, many years from Iran," he said adding: "And so, we know that. We see that. However, he was cautious in his statement as he clarified that the US did not lay its hands yet on any proof implicating Tehran in the Hamas' weekend offensive as the Jewish New Year celebs were coming to an end."
"When it comes to this specific attack, at this moment, we don’t have direct evidence that Iran was involved in the attack, either in planning it or carrying it out," Blinken said.
"But that could change."
Republicans have criticised the Biden's Democratic government of being lax towards Iran, in following up a prisoner exchange deal that saw five imprisoned Americans released against five Iranians and the US in exchange for the release of about $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets from oil sales.
These attacks are coming either from people who are misinformed or spreading misinformation, Blinken said.
The money in question was allowed to flow from a bank account in South Korea from the sale of Iranian oil, noting that the Trump administration established the mechanism and Iranians were already allowed to spend that money on humanitarian purposes.
Iran had been unable to access those funds for technical reasons, and the Biden administration simply allowed transferring the money to another account in Qatar. Under the latest agreement, Tehran could only spend the money on humanitarian goods under the supervision of the US Treasury Department, US media reports said.
The US and Qatar have reportedly agreed to prohibit Iran from accessing the money in the wake of the Israel Hamas war and Iran’s suspected involvement. So far, the Iranians hadn’t used any funds in the account in question.
"Not a dollar of this money has been spent to date, and we retained the right to freeze that account," Blinken said.
The US Secretary of State had travelled to Israel on Thursday and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top government officials on a special mission to help Israel secure the safe release of hostages held by the Hamas that included an unknown number of Americans and locating the missing 25 Americans on Israeli soil.
Blinken had expressed the US' commitment to support Israel. "You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself -- but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to," Blinken said.
"We will always be there by your side."