Above photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg.
To rebuild Gulf allies’ infrastructure.
Tehran is demanding Washington release $24 billion in stolen Iranian funds as a goodwill measure to continue negotiations to end the war.
The White House plans to transfer seized Iranian assets to Gulf states for repairing damage caused by Iran’s retaliatory strikes, CBS News reported on 7 June, citing sources familiar with the matter.
On Saturday, a source told CBS that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has instructed a team to assess costs for damage inflicted on Washington’s Gulf allies by Iran.
Assets that could be used include Iranian cash in frozen bank accounts or hard assets such as seized oil tankers.
The White House will consider using frozen Iranian assets to repair past as well as future destruction caused by Iran in the Gulf states.
The US has seized tens of billions of dollars of Iranian assets over the years, including revenue from oil exports, by enforcing economic sanctions it has placed on Iran.
Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, stated on Friday that reaching any deal to end the war would require the Treasury to release $24 billion in Iranian assets. Iran views the return of the stolen funds as a goodwill measure to restart stalled negotiations.
“The negotiations are at a deadlock and (US President Donald) Trump must break this deadlock,” Rezaei told CNN in an interview in Tehran. “The ball is in Trump’s court.”
Rezai added that the US would “enter into a dark corridor” should it resume the war, as Iran is capable of expanding military operations beyond the Strait of Hormuz to the Indian Ocean, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea.
“We will give another dimension to the war by attacking these other American bases that we have been attacking so far,” he said.
Tehran is also demanding waivers on sanctions on crude exports, war damage reparations, the lifting of the US blockade on its ports, and recognition of its control of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which some 20 percent of global oil exports transited before the war.
President Trump is reportedly demanding that Iran give up its stockpile of enriched uranium, which he claims Tehran wishes to build a nuclear bomb.
Tehran says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, such as generating electricity, and has allowed UN inspectors to monitor the program’s development.
On Friday, Axios reported that President Trump’s advisors, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, had traveled to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee for consultations with a team of technical experts who could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Major combat operations by both sides ended on 8 April when a temporary ceasefire was announced. However, Washington and Tehran exchanged new strikes over the weekend.
On Saturday, US forces bombed Iranian radar sites in Goruk and Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz and shot down several Iranian drones that allegedly posed a threat to maritime shipping.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced it retaliated by striking the Ali al-Salem air base in Kuwait, which hosts US forces, and the US Navy’s 5th Fleet base in Bahrain with ballistic missiles.
The US military claimed it intercepted six of the missiles, while a seventh did not reach its target.
The US and Israel launched an unprovoked war on the Islamic Republic on 28 February using military bases in the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
In response, Iranian armed forces targeted the Gulf countries using ballistic missiles and drones.
Iran is demanding war reparations from Gulf states for their financial and logistical backing of regional aggression against Tehran, insisting that accountability must precede any discussion of future security frameworks.
