Iran frees 5 Americans in exchange for jailed, frozen money
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Iran has freed on Thursday five Americans from a prison in Tehran in exchange for the release of five of its own prisoners and the unfrozen of six billion dollars.
The five Americans were released into house arrest by Tehran authorities with the intention of allowing them to travel to the US in the coming weeks.
“We will not rest until they are all back home in the United States,” said Adrienne Watson, National Security Council Spokesperson in a statement.
The process followed months negotiations brokered by a third country. “Under the deal mediated by a third country, five Iranians jailed in the United States will be released and Iran’s frozen funds in South Korea will be unblocked and transferred to Qatar,” a spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations said, adding that the two countries had agreed to “reciprocally release and pardon five prisoners.”
Iran has tied the release of the prisoners to access to billions of dollars held in Iraq for deliveries of gas and oil and six billion dollars in funds held in South Korea after the administration of former president Donald Trump tightened sanctions on the country’s oil exports.
“Iran will not be receiving any sanctions relief, and in any instance where we would engage in such efforts to bring Americans home from Iran,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Thursday.
“Iran’s own funds would be used and transferred to restricted accounts such that the monies can only be used for humanitarian purposes…permitted under our sanctions,” he added.
The deal came against a tense regional environment, where the US is sending additional forces to the Middle East to stop and deter attacks against international commercial tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. The US has also repeatedly called out and penalized Iran for its assistance to Russia in its war in Ukraine.