From House of Saud, June 7:
Bessent directs Treasury to redirect frozen Iranian assets to Gulf allies as war compensation, eliminating the $24B Tehran demanded as its peace precondition.
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent directed his department on June 6, 2026, to use “all available authorities” to redirect frozen Iranian assets toward Gulf allies as compensation for war damage sustained since Iran’s first strikes on February 28 — a move that converts the $24 billion Tehran demanded as its precondition for peace into the fund Washington intends to use for paying the repair bills of the states Iran attacked. The directive, disclosed by a source familiar with Bessent’s thinking and reported simultaneously by Reuters, CBS News, and Arab News, arrived one day after Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN that the frozen assets were non-negotiable and that without their release “the negotiations are at a deadlock.”
The timing is not incidental. Iran filed its Oman counteroffer on June 6 — three days earlier than the expected June 9 deadline — demanding that Washington release frozen assets before Tehran removes mines from the Strait of Hormuz or restores passage to commercial shipping. Bessent’s directive does not merely reject that sequencing; it eliminates the asset pool Iran was negotiating over, redirecting the same funds to the parties Iran damaged. The result is a collision between two governments claiming the same $24 billion for opposite purposes, with neither possessing the legal machinery to force the other’s compliance.
What Treasury Said — and What It Left Open....
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