World court set to rule on Iran’s frozen billions

THE HAGUE: The International Court of Justice will give its decision on a bid by Iran to recover $2 billion in frozen assets that the United States says must be paid to victims of attacks.

The case threatens to cause further bad blood after a decision in October when The Hague-based tribunal ordered Washington to lift nuclearrelated sanctions on humanitarian goods for Iran.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are already high around the 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution and a Middle East meeting in Warsaw where the United States aims to pile pressure on Iran.

The US Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that Iran must give the cash to survivors and relatives of victims of attacks blamed on Tehran, including the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut.

Iran said the US decision to freeze the funds breached 1955 Treaty of Amity with the United States, an agreement signed before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution severed relations between the countries.

The United States announced after the sanctions case that it was immediately pulling out of the Treaty of Amity.

At the last hearing on Iran’s funds appeal in October at The Haguebased tribunal, Washington said Iran has “unclean hands” and that should disqualify the case from being heard.

The court will now rule on the “preliminary objections” of the United States to Iran’s case, it said in a statement.

The ICJ is the top court of the United Nations and was set up after World War II to resolve disputes between member states. Its rulings are binding and cannot be appealed, but it has no means of enforcing them.

Relations between Washington and Tehran have been strained since President Donald Trump’s decision last year to pull out of a “terrible” international nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions.