A girl steps through a door that is roofed by a mural depicting American hostages and wrongful detainees who’re being held abroad, July 20, 2022, within the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington. At left is Siamak Namazi, who has been in captivity in Iran since 2015. At right is Jose Angel Pereira, who has been imprisoned in Venezuela since 2017.
Patrick Semansky | AP
Five U.S. detainees flew out of Iran on Monday in a swap for five Iranians held within the U.S. in a rare deal between the arch-enemies that also unfroze $6 billion of Tehran’s funds.
A plane sent by mediator Qatar flew the five U.S. residents and two of their relatives out of Tehran soon after either side received confirmation the funds had been transferred to accounts in Doha, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters.
At the identical time, two of the five Iranians landed in Qatar, a U.S. official said. Three have opted to not return to Iran.
The deal, after months of talks in Qatar, removes a significant irritant between the U.S., which brands Tehran a sponsor of terrorism, and Iran, which calls Washington the “Great Devil”.
But they continue to be deeply divided on other issues starting from Iran’s nuclear program and its influence across the region to U.S. sanctions and America’s military presence within the Gulf.
A senior U.S. administration official said the deal didn’t change Washington’s adversarial relationship with Tehran, however the door was open for diplomacy on Iran’s nuclear program.
“If we see a possibility, we’ll explore it but immediately, I’ve really nothing to speak about,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The five Americans with dual nationality are attributable to fly to Doha after which on to the U.S. “They’re in good health,” an Iranian official briefed on the method said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said two of the Iranians being released would return to Iran while two would stay within the U.S. at their request. One detainee would join his family in a 3rd country, he added.
Kanaani said the funds, blocked in South Korea after U.S. sanctions on Iran were hardened in 2018, could be available to Tehran on Monday. Under the deal, Qatar will make sure the money is spent on humanitarian goods and never items under U.S. sanctions.
Shuttle diplomacy
Qatar, a tiny but hugely wealthy Gulf Arab energy producer, has sought to boost its global profile, hosting the soccer World Cup last 12 months and carving out a task in international diplomacy. The Sunni Muslim nation hosts an enormous U.S. military base but has also forged close ties with Shi’ite Muslim Iran.
Doha hosted at the very least eight rounds of talks with Iranian and U.S. negotiators sitting in separate hotels, speaking via shuttle diplomacy, a source previously told Reuters.
The transfer of Iran’s funds under the agreement has drawn criticism from U.S. Republicans who say President Joe Biden, a Democrat, is in effect paying a ransom for U.S. residents.
The White House has defended the deal.
The U.S. dual residents to be released include Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Sharqi, 59, each businessmen, and Morad Tahbaz, 67, an environmentalist who also holds British nationality. They were released from prison and put under house arrest last month.
A fourth U.S. citizen was also released into house arrest, while a fifth was already under house arrest. Their identities haven’t been disclosed.
Iranian officials have named the five Iranians to be released by the U.S. as Mehrdad Moin-Ansari, Kambiz Attar-Kashani, Reza Sarhangpour-Kafrani, Amin Hassanzadeh and Kaveh Afrasiabi. Two Iranian officials previously said that Afrasiabi would remain in america but had not mentioned others.
Ties between Washington and Tehran have been boiling since Donald Trump, a Republican, pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal between Iran and global powers when he was president in 2018. Reaching one other nuclear deal has gained little traction since, as Biden prepares for the 2024 U.S. election.
As a primary step within the deal, Washington waived sanctions to permit the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar. The funds were blocked in South Korea, normally one in all Iran’s largest oil customers, when Washington imposed sweeping financial sanctions on Tehran and the money couldn’t be transferred.
