Iran files complaint against US

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hear Iran's lawsuit against the US over illegal freezing of two billion dollars worth of the Central Bank of Iran's (CBI) assets, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Bahram Qasemi said.

"The court hearing on Iran's complaint will be held in The Hague in mid October," Qasemi said at his weekly press briefing in Tehran.

He added that the issue will seriously be followed up by Iran and the country is waiting for the ICJ October session, IRNA reported.

On April 20, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that almost $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets must be turned over to American families of people killed in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran.

The court’s ruling dealt a setback to Iran’s central bank, finding that the U.S. Congress did not usurp the authority of American courts by passing a 2012 law stating that the frozen funds should go toward satisfying a $2.65 billion judgment won by the families against Iran in U.S. federal court in 2007.

In May 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Iran's central bank Valiollah Seif.

The head of the Iranian section of the Center for the Study of Countries at the Middle East of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS, Nina Mamedova, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the political component of the claim is important for Iran. "In terms of international law, Iran has the right to claim defrosting of its assets, since, according to the Vienna agreement, the international sanctions against the republic were lifted. But the thing is not that Tehran really needs these $2.5 billion, but the fact that it underlines the incompetence of the current US administration's actions with regard to Iran and the legal norms that Washington undertook to fulfill. And this is a very correct course in legal terms, even if the claim does not bring any results," she stressed.

The chances of winning are quite low. "The US will refer to the fact that this money has been frozen in the times of Khomeini due to the reasons that have not disappeared, that is, Iran is still a danger to the US. But first of all it is important for Iran that it requires its own property through an international the court. Even according to the US law, Tehran has the right to dispose of its money in American banks. But now it can use this problem as an opportunity to point to US behavior that does not always respect the international law," Nina Mamedova pointed out.