The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Wednesday that Iran can proceed with a bid to recover billions of dollars in frozen assets the United States says must go to victims of attacks blamed on Tehran.

Judges of the UN’s top court rejected U.S. claims that the case should be thrown out because Iran had “unclean hands” due to alleged links to terrorism, and that the tribunal in The Hague did not have jurisdiction in the lawsuit, AFP reported.

The ruling by the International Court of Justice relates to a complaint filed by Iran in June 2016 “for the confiscation and theft of two billion dollars of the property of the central bank,” President Hassan Rouhani said at the time.  

Iran lodged the complaint after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the assets must be turned over to American families of those killed in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks which Washington blames on Tehran without evidence.

The U.S. decision, according to Iran, breaches the Treaty of Amity between Tehran and Washington signed before the 1979 Islamic Revolution when the two countries were close allies.