BICOM

US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday candidly admitted that some of the funds from which Iran will benefit through sanctions relief, will end up in the hands of terror groups.

Last weekend, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared that Iran has complied with the conditions of July’s nuclear deal with the P5+1 powers (US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany), which requires Iran to significantly reduce its nuclear development over the next ten years in return for sanctions relief. As a result, the United States and European Union both announced that associated sanctions have been lifted, a move which is expected to quickly unfreeze billions of pounds worth of Iranian assets.

In the wake of the sanctions relief, Israeli leaders warned that Iranian funds will now be increasingly directed towards terror groups. IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot predicted that Iran will increase its one billion dollar funding of Hezbollah and that tens of millions will reach Hamas. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assessed, “What’s clear is that Iran will now turn its resources toward its terrorist activity in the region and rest of the world.”

Speaking to CBS News yesterday, Kerry appeared to partially confirm such fears, addressing the unfrozen Iranian assets saying, “I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp) or other entities, some of which are labelled terrorists.” He added, “You know, to some degree, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that every component of that can be prevented. But I can tell you this, right now, we are not seeing the early delivery of funds going to that kind of endeavour at this point in time.”

Kerry also emphasised that, “We have made it very clear that we use sanctions when we think they are appropriate.” The United States recently imposed sanctions on Iranian entities involved in ballistic missile tests, breaching United Nations Security Council resolutions.