Iran says prisoner swap with US to take place Monday

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran’s foreign ministry on Monday announced that the five Iranian prisoners held in the United States will be released on Monday as part of a swap deal with Washington that involves five Americans in Iran going the opposite direction and the unfreezing of Iranian funds. 

“We hope to have complete access to the Iranian funds today,” said Nasser Kanaani, spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry. “The prisoner exchange will take place on the same day and five Iranian citizens imprisoned in America will be released.”

The exchange would see $6 billion of Iranian funds frozen in South Korea being released and moved to restricted accounts in Qatar, a US ally, while Iran and the US would swap five prisoners. 

On Thursday, the US said that it would supervise the mechanism of how the funds are spent purely for humanitarian purposes.

“This is not a payment of any kind. It is not a ransom,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “We have not lifted a single one of our sanctions on Iran. Iran will be getting no sanctions relief.” 

The detained US citizens to be returned home as part of the deal include Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, and Emad Shargi, as well as two others who chose to have their identities concealed. The three revealed prisoners have been imprisoned for at least five years while Namazi has been held since 2015. Last month, the five were released to house arrest. 

Of the five Iranians to be released, two will return to Iran while two will remain in the US upon their request, Kanaani said. The fifth prisoner has chosen to go to a third country with his family.

The prisoner deal has been a major point of contention in US-Iran talks, particularly since Washington under former president Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 and imposed biting sanctions on Tehran.  

The JCPOA was signed between Britain, France, China, Germany, Russia, Iran, and the US in 2015, offering Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program to ensure it does not enrich enough uranium to develop a nuclear weapon.