Iran has seen only $3 bln returned since nuke deal: Kerry

The extent to which Tehran stands to gain from the agreement to place its nuclear program under tight controls has been a matter of fierce debate since Iran signed the accord last year.

In the United States, Republican opponents of the deal have alleged that it will allow Iran to get its hands on more than $100 billion with which it could fund “terrorism” against American allies.

Meanwhile, in Iran, officials have complained that the country has yet to see much benefit from the end of nuclear sanctions, as banks and private companies have been slow to renew ties with the former pariah.

The U.S. administration has been trying to find its way between the competing claims, insisting it has met its side of the bargain in lifting sanctions while vowing it will not tolerate Iranian backsliding.

And so Kerry, who is to meet with his Iranian counterpart Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York on April 19, hit back against critics of the deal, insisting their figures are wrong.

“Remember the debate over how much money Iran was going to get?” he said to delegates at a dinner hosted by the progressive pro-Israel group J Street.

“Sometimes you hear some of the presidential candidates putting out a mistaken figure of $155 billion. I never thought it would be that.

“Others thought it would be about $100 billion, because there was supposedly about $100 billion that was frozen and so forth,” he continued.

“We calculated it to be about $55 billion, when you really take a hard look at the economy and what is happening,” he said, giving the usual State Department estimate.

“Guess what folks. You know how much they have received to date? As I stand here tonight, about $3 billion.” The United States has not had diplomatic relations with Tehran since April 1980, but Kerry got to know Zarif while negotiating the nuclear deal, and the two speak fairly regularly.