TEHRAN: Iran’s top diplomat on Sunday said “everything is ready” to implement a stalled prisoner exchange agreement with the United States (US), three of whose citizens are held in Iranian prisons.
“In recent days, we have reached an agreement regarding the exchange of prisoners between Iran and the United States,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told state broadcaster IRINN.
The minister added that the deal had been “signed and approved indirectly” last year in a televised interview, saying the “US is making its last technical arrangements” ahead of the implementation of the deal.
“In our opinion, everything is ready,” the Iranian minister said. “If everything goes well on the US side, I think we will witness the exchange of prisoners very soon.”
In October, Iranian media reported a prisoner swap agreed upon by Iran and the US included the unfreezing of Iranian funds abroad, but Amir-Abdollahian Sunday did not mention that.
The Iranian foreign minister’s remarks came two days after a CNN interview with Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessman detained in Tehran’s Evin jail since 2015.
Namazi, 51, was blocked from leaving Iran during a visit and later sentenced to 10 years on charges of collaboration with a foreign government.
He denies the allegations, which US officials have called groundless.
His father, Mohammad Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF official, was arrested in February 2016 when he went to Iran to free his son.
They were both sentenced to 10 years on spying charges in October 2016. Baquer, under house arrest since 2018, had his sentence commuted in 2020 and was finally granted permission to leave the country for medical treatment in October.
US citizens held in Iran
According to Iran’s judiciary, at least two other US citizens are held in the country’s prisons.
At least 16 Western passport holders, most dual nationals — which Iran does not generally recognize — are detained in the country.
Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American with British nationality, was arrested alongside other environmentalists in January 2018 and sentenced to 10 years for “conspiring with America.”
Iranian-American venture capitalist Emad Sharqi was sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges, Iranian media reported in 2021, saying he was captured trying to flee the country.
Karan Vafadari, an Iranian-American member of the Zoroastrian minority faith, was arrested in June 2016 on spying allegations and released on bail in July 2018. He is still unable to leave Iran.
Iran’s judiciary reported in August that “dozens” of Iranian nationals had been detained in the United States, including Reza Sarhangpour and Kambiz Attar Kashani, who is accused of violating US sanctions against Tehran.
