Iran Appears Ready to Swap Prisoners with US as Talks Approach 'Finish Line'

Talks on restoring a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program and ease sanctions are near conclusion, a Russian envoy said on Tuesday, and sources close to the negotiations said a prisoner swap between Iran and the United States is expected soon.

“Apparently the negotiations on restoration of #JCPOA are about to cross the finish line,” Mikhail Ulyanov said on Twitter, using the 2015 agreement’s full name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Read full story.

Reuters reported last week that a U.S.-Iranian deal was taking shape in Vienna after months of talks between Tehran and major powers to revive the nuclear deal pact, abandoned in 2018 by then-U.S. President Donald Trump, who also reimposed extensive sanctions on Iran. Read full story.

A draft text of the agreement alluded only vaguely to other issues, diplomats said, adding that what was meant by that was unfreezing billions of dollars in Iranian funds in South Korean banks, and the release of Western prisoners held in Iran.

On Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said the Islamic Republic was ready for an immediate prisoner exchange with the United States.

“Iran has always and repeatedly expressed its readiness to exchange prisoners. Months ago we were ready to do it but the Americans ruined the deal,” a senior Iranian official in Tehran told Reuters, without elaborating.

“Now I believe some of them will be released, maybe five or six of them. But those talks about prisoners are not linked to the nuclear agreement, rather associated with it. This is a humanitarian measure by Iran.”

U.S. negotiator Robert Malley has suggested that securing the nuclear pact is unlikely unless Tehran frees four U.S. citizens, including Iranian-American father and son Baquer and Siamak Namazi, that Washington says Tehran is holding hostage.

“Six years ago the Iranian government arrested Baquer Namazi and they still refuse to let him leave the country,” Malley tweeted on Tuesday. “The Iranian government can and must release the Namazis, Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz, and other unjustly held U.S. and foreign nationals.”

Iran, which does not recognize dual nationality, denies taking prisoners to gain diplomatic leverage. However, in recent years, the elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on espionage and security-related charges.

Britain has been seeking the release of British-Iranians Anousheh Ashouri, jailed on espionage charges, and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation who was convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment. L8N2UW3FH

Tehran has sought the release of over a dozen Iranians in the United States, including seven Iranian-American dual nationals, two Iranians with permanent U.S. residency and four Iranian citizens with no legal status in the United States.

Most were jailed for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.

In the latest comments on the final phase of 10 months of nuclear negotiations, the talks’ coordinator, Enrique Mora, tweeted that “key issues need to be fixed” but the end was near.

Several Iranian officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said some minor technical issues were being discussed in Vienna and that a deal was expected before the end of the week, though adding that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”

Separately, hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told gas exporter countries on Tuesday to avoid any “cruel” sanctions imposed by the United States on Tehran.

“The members of this forum should not recognize those sanctions…(because) in today’s world we see that the sanctions are not going to be effective,” Raisi told a gas exporters conference in Doha.

The 2015 deal between Iran and world powers limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium to make it harder for it to develop material for nuclear weapons, if it chose to, in return for a lifting of international sanctions against Tehran.

Since 2019, following the U.S. withdrawal from the deal, Tehran has gone well beyond its limits, rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.

Prisoners train pigeons to bring cell phones into prison - Other Cities - Colombia

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In the wing of the dove they had stuck the SIM card to enter it in jail.

Photo:

Taken from social media

In the wing of the dove they had stuck the SIM card to enter it in jail.

Criminals glued a SIM card to the bird’s wing so that it could be taken to the Ternera jail.

Select the creator of the article in the configuration of this module

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barranquilla
Article publication time

Author’s name
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BA

February 20, 2022, 10:00 AM

LH

Leonard Herrera
February 20, 2022, 10:00 AM

With a sign of physical exhaustion and dehydration, a pigeon was rescued that was used by prison inmates san sebastian of Cartagena veal to enter mobile cell phones.

(Also: ICBF has the 11-month-old child the victim of alleged abuse by his mother)

It was what he could establish the Metropolitan Police upon finding that a Sim Card was attached to the bird’s wing.

The first investigations show that the pigeon had been trying to enter the prison for two days. The situation was noted by residents of the sector who alerted to the authorities when they saw that the bird, due to exhaustion, could not fly and was stalked by cats.

(Read: Attack with explosives destroyed Police station in rural area of ​​Cúcuta)

At this time the police investigate the bird’s identification rings to find its owner.

In the communication of the Metropolitan Police of Cartagena confirms that it is a new modality that through the training of carrier pigeons mobile teams of cell phones enter the prisons, sim cards, cell phone battery and narcotics, to evade the controls of the police authorities and the guards of the penitentiary centers.

(Don’t stop reading: After 121 processes, today the first recall is voted)

The pigeon will be delivered to the Environmental Public Establishment (EPA) for your recovery.

BARRANQUILLA

BA

February 20, 2022, 10:00 AM

LH

Leonard Herrera
February 20, 2022, 10:00 AM

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Iran Wants Money, Not Exchange of Prisoners With US, Sources Say

washington — 

Iran is not serious about wanting a prisoner exchange with the United States and instead appears to be seeking money as part of any deal to release four Americans labeled by the U.S. as hostages of Tehran, according to informed sources.

U.S. and Iranian officials have been trying to negotiate a potential rare exchange of prisoners since last April, when they began indirect talks through mediators in Vienna to try to revive a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran, the U.S. and other world powers.

In recent years, Iranian officials have repeatedly said they want a full exchange of prisoners in which the U.S. would release all Iranian citizens whom they describe as unjustly detained for reasons such as violations of U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh, speaking at a January 24 news conference, said Iran could reach “lasting” agreements on the prisoner and nuclear issues in a short time “if there is a will on the [U.S.] side.”

Neither Iran nor the U.S. has published lists of Iranians under U.S. detention and prosecution.

The eight Iranian non-U.S. citizens in U.S. detention or on supervised pretrial release for federal offenses. (Courtesy Tasnim, U.S. law enforcement agency, social media)

16 names

A VOA Persian review of U.S. Justice Department databases found 16 Iranians in U.S. detention or on supervised pretrial release for proven or alleged federal crimes, mostly related to long-running U.S.-Iran tensions. The number of Iranians detained in the U.S. for non-federal offenses is unknown.

In Iran, four Iranian American dual nationals are in detention or barred from leaving the country for alleged security offenses that the U.S. says were trumped up so that Tehran could use the Americans as bargaining chips. The Biden administration, like its predecessors, has pledged to work to bring them home.

The four are businessman Siamak Namazi, who was arrested in October 2015; his father and former U.N. official Baquer Namazi, who was detained in February 2016 and granted a medical furlough from prison in 2018 but barred from leaving Iran; Morad Tahbaz, an environmentalist who was arrested in January 2018; and businessman Emad Shargi, who has been detained since December 2020.

The 16 Iranians in U.S. detention or on supervised pretrial release for federal offenses consist of eight Iranian American dual nationals, four Iranian citizens with U.S. permanent residency, and four Iranian citizens with no legal status in the U.S.

Of the eight Iranian Americans, three are serving prison sentences for violating U.S. or international sanctions against Iran: Sadr Emad-Vaez, Hassan Ali Moshir-Fatemi and Reza Olangian. A fourth, Manssor Arbabsiar, is serving a prison sentence for conspiring with Iranian officials in a foiled plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. in 2011.

Three of the other Iranian Americans are charged with U.S. sanctions violations: Faezeh Faghihi and Niloufar “Nellie” Bahadorifar, who are on supervised pretrial release, and Kambiz Attar Kashani, who is in custody pending a detention hearing after his arrest in Chicago last month. The eighth, Erfan Salmanzadeh, is in custody and undergoing a psychiatric evaluation after being charged with possessing a destructive device that exploded at his home in Texas last year.

Of the four Iranian U.S. permanent residents, three are charged with U.S. sanctions violations: Amin Hasanzadeh and Farzeneh Modarresi, who are on supervised pretrial release, and Mohammad Faghihi, who is in pretrial detention. The fourth, political commentator Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, is on supervised pretrial release and charged with acting as an unregistered Iranian agent.

Of the four Iranians with no legal status in the U.S., Mehrdad Ansari is serving a prison sentence and Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani is on supervised pretrial release, both in U.S. sanctions violation cases; Milad Rezaei Kalantari is serving a prison sentence for conspiracy to sell stolen credit card information online, and Malek Mohammad Balouchzehi is in pretrial detention on charges of conspiring to sell heroin for distribution in the U.S.

Less interest than before

A source with knowledge of the issue told VOA that Iranian officials appear less interested or engaged in securing the release of Iranians currently jailed or prosecuted in the U.S. than they did when discussing previous cases. The source requested anonymity to avoid disrupting diplomacy related to the U.S.-Iran prisoner dispute.

Iran previously obtained the release of two of its citizens from U.S. detention as part of prisoner exchange agreements with the administration of Donald Trump, who preceded President Joe Biden.

In June 2020, Trump granted an early release to Iranian American medical doctor Matteo Taerri, also known as Majid Taheri, who served 16 months in prison for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and U.S. banking laws. In exchange, Iran allowed U.S. Navy veteran Michael White to return home after detaining him for 20 months on security charges deemed bogus by the U.S.

In December 2019, Trump released Iranian scientist Masoud Soleimani, who had been detained and charged in another U.S. sanctions violation case. In return, Iran freed Chinese American historian Xiyue Wang from three years of imprisonment for what the U.S. said were false security charges. That prisoner swap happened in Zurich via Swiss mediation.

A second source — former U.S. diplomat Barry Rosen, who was held hostage in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution — told VOA that when he met with U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley and European officials in Vienna last month, he heard that Iran was looking for money in return for freeing the four Americans in its custody, rather than for the U.S. to release detained Iranians.

“The Iranian government doesn’t care about doing an exchange for their people,” Rosen said. “They think their people [detained in the U.S.] are failures and useless. Look, they want money. They are in dire straits economically and need it.”

Rosen, 77, met with the officials in Vienna while on a five-day hunger strike to press for a U.S.-Iran deal to free the four Americans and other Westerners of Iranian origin detained in Iran. He is a senior adviser to U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI).

‘Good talking point’

UANI policy director Jason Brodsky said in a separate VOA interview that Iran’s pledge to seek the release of what it describes as its oppressed citizens in the U.S. is a “good talking point” for Tehran.

“But they won’t admit that their priority is the unfreezing of Iranian assets for regime preservation, because that doesn’t sell so well, publicly,” he said.

Brodsky said Iran also appears to believe it can ask the U.S. to pay a higher price than before for the release of the four detained Iranian Americans because Tehran does not recognize their dual nationality and sees them solely as Iranian criminals whose freedom Washington seeks. The two Americans released by Iran in 2019 and 2020 were not Iranian nationals.

“If the U.S. unfreezes Iranian assets in exchange for the release of the four American hostages, that would incentivize Iran to take more Americans and other Western nationals hostage in the future,” Brodsky said.

It is unclear what the U.S. would consider giving Iran in a deal to free the four Americans. When a VOA Persian reporter raised the issue with a senior State Department official in a Monday phone briefing, the official declined to go into details, citing the sensitivity of negotiations.

“For us, this is an absolute priority to get the four back home, and we will not do anything that could complicate either the return or the treatment that they are undergoing while in Iran,” the U.S. official said.

A 2019 FBI report said it is a “long-standing” U.S. policy not to pay ransoms to hostage takers.

Guita Aryan of VOA’s Persian Service contributed to this report.

Iran Nuclear Agreement Unlikely Without Release of US Prisoners

VIENNA — 

The United States is unlikely to strike an agreement with Iran to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal unless Tehran releases four U.S. citizens Washington says it is holding hostage, the lead U.S. nuclear negotiator told Reuters on Sunday.

The official, U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley, repeated the long-held U.S. position that the issue of the four people held in Iran is separate from the nuclear negotiations.

He moved a step closer, however, to saying that their release was a precondition for a nuclear agreement.

“They’re separate and we’re pursuing both of them. But I will say it is very hard for us to imagine getting back into the nuclear deal while four innocent Americans are being held hostage by Iran,” Malley told Reuters in an interview.

“So even as we’re conducting talks with Iran indirectly on the nuclear file we are conducting, again indirectly, discussions with them to ensure the release of our hostages,” he said in Vienna, where talks are taking place on bringing Washington and Tehran back into full compliance with the deal.

In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on espionage and security-related charges.

Rights groups have accused Iran of taking prisoners to gain diplomatic leverage, while Western powers have long demanded that Tehran free their citizens, who they say are political prisoners.

Tehran denies holding people for political reasons.

Message sent

Malley was speaking in a joint interview with Barry Rosen, a 77-year-old former U.S. diplomat who has been on hunger strike in Vienna to demand the release of U.S., British, French, German, Austrian and Swedish prisoners in Iran, and that no nuclear agreement be reached without their release.

Rosen was one of more than 50 U.S. diplomats held during the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis.

“I’ve spoken to a number of the families of the hostages who are extraordinarily grateful for what Mr. Rosen is doing but they also are imploring him to stop his hunger strike, as I am, because the message has been sent,” Malley said.

Rosen said that after five days of not eating he was feeling weak and would heed those calls.

“With the request from Special Envoy Malley and my doctors and others, we’ve agreed (that) after this meeting I will stop my hunger strike but this does not mean that others will not take up the baton,” Rosen said.

The indirect talks between Iran and the United States on bringing both countries back into full compliance with the landmark 2015 nuclear deal are in their eighth round. Iran

refuses to hold meetings with U.S. officials, meaning others shuttle between the two sides.

The deal between Iran and major powers lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear activities that extended the time it would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb if it chose to. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

Then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reimposing punishing economic sanctions against Tehran. Iran responded by breaching many of the deal’s nuclear restrictions, to the point that Western powers say the deal will soon have been hollowed out completely.

Leverage

Asked if Iran and the United States might negotiate directly, Malley said: “We’ve heard nothing to that effect. We’d welcome it.”

The four U.S. citizens include Iranian American businessman Siamak Namazi, 50, and his father Baquer, 85, both of whom have been convicted of “collaboration with a hostile government.”

Namazi remains in prison. His father was released on medical grounds in 2018 and his sentence later reduced to time served.

While the elder Namazi is no longer jailed, a lawyer for the family says he is effectively barred from leaving Iran.

“Senior Biden administration officials have repeatedly told us that although the potential Iranian nuclear and hostage deals are independent and must be negotiated on parallel tracks, they will not just conclude the nuclear deal by itself,” said Jared Genser, pro bono counsel to the Namazi family.

“Otherwise, all leverage to get the hostages out will be lost,” he added.

The others are environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 66, who is also British, and businessman Emad Shargi, 57.