Iran-US prisoner swap likely set in motion as $6 billion of once-frozen Iranian assets reaches Qatar

DUBAI – Iran and the United States will alternate prisoners on Monday after some $6 billion as soon as frozen in South Korea reached Qatar, a key part of the deliberate swap, officers stated.

The deliberate alternate comes simply forward of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the place Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi will discuss. However, the swap may not imply that tensions had been decreased between the U.S. and Iran, which now enriches uranium nearer than ever to weapons-grade ranges.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani used to be the primary to recognize the swap would happen Monday. He stated the money hunted for the alternate used to be now in Qatar.

An particular person with direct wisdom of the deal, who spoke to The Associated Press on situation of anonymity given the alternate had but to be concluded, later stated that each Iranian and U.S. officers were notified by way of Qatar that the cash were transferred from Switzerland into the Gulf Arab country.

Kanaani made his feedback all through a news convention aired on state tv, however the feed minimize in an instant after his remarks with out rationalization.

“We witnessed freezing of parts Iranian assets in some countries including South Korea,” Kanaani said. “As part of our policy of active foreign diplomacy, fortunately Iran’s frozen assets in South Korea were released and God willing today the assets will start to be fully controlled by the government and the nation.”

“On the subject of the prisoner swap, it will happen today and five prisoners, citizens of the Islamic Republic, will be released from the prisons in the U.S.,” Kanaani added. “Five imprisoned citizens who were in Iran will be given to the U.S. side reciprocally, based on their will. We expect these two issues fully take place based on the agreement.”

He stated two of the Iranian prisoners will keep in the U.S.

Iranian news companies in an instant later on reported, quoting Kanaani, that the prisoner swap can be achieved on Monday. There used to be no different information in an instant launched by way of the companies and Washington didn’t recognize the feedback.

However, a Qatar Airways Airbus A320 landed on Monday morning at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, the place earlier prisoner releases have taken position, in line with flight-tracking information analyzed by way of the AP. Qatar Airways makes use of Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport for its industrial flights.

The announcement by way of Kanaani comes weeks after Iran stated that 5 Iranian-Americans at the moment are below space arrest as section of a confidence-building transfer whilst Seoul allowed the frozen assets, held in South Korean gained, to be transformed into euros. That cash used to be then despatched to Qatar, an interlocutor between Tehran and Washington in the negotiations.

The deliberate swap has spread out amid a big American army buildup in the Persian Gulf, with the likelihood of U.S. troops boarding and guarding commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, during which 20% of all oil shipments go.

The deal has additionally already opened President Joe Biden to recent grievance from Republicans and others who say that the management helps spice up the Iranian financial system at a time when Iran poses a rising risk to U.S. troops and Mideast allies. That may just raise over into his reelection marketing campaign as smartly.

On the U.S. aspect, Washington has stated the deliberate swap contains Siamak Namazi, who used to be detained in 2015 and used to be later sentenced to ten years in jail on across the world criticized spying fees; Emad Sharghi, a mission capitalist sentenced to ten years; and Morad Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent who used to be arrested in 2018 and in addition gained a 10-year sentence.

U.S. professional have up to now declined to spot the fourth and 5th prisoner.

The 5 prisoners Iran has stated it seeks are most commonly held over allegedly seeking to export subject material to Iran.

The ultimate greenback quantity from Seoul may well be anyplace between $6 billion to $7 billion, relying on alternate charges. The money represents cash South Korea owed Iran — however had now not but paid — for oil bought prior to the Trump management imposed sanctions on such transactions in 2019.

The U.S. maintains that, as soon as in Qatar, the cash shall be held in limited accounts and can handiest be capable to be used for humanitarian items, such as medication and meals. Those transactions are recently allowed below American sanctions concentrated on the Islamic Republic over its advancing nuclear program.

Iranian govt officers have in large part concurred with that rationalization, despite the fact that some hard-liners have insisted, with out offering proof, that there can be no restrictions on how Tehran spends the cash.

Iran and the U.S. have a historical past of prisoner swaps relationship again to the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover and hostage disaster following the Islamic Revolution. Their most up-to-date primary alternate came about in 2016, when Iran got here to a handle international powers to limit its nuclear program in go back for an easing of sanctions.

Four American captives, together with Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, flew house from Iran on the time, and several other Iranians in the U.S. gained their freedom. That identical day, President Barack Obama’s management airlifted $400 million in money to Tehran.

Iran has received international criticism over its concentrated on of other folks with twin citizenship. The West accuses Iran of the use of overseas prisoners as bargaining chips, an allegation Tehran rejects.

Negotiations over a big prisoner swap faltered after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal in 2018. From the next yr on, a sequence of assaults and send seizures attributed to Iran have raised tensions.

Meanwhile, Iran’s nuclear program now enriches nearer than ever to weapons-grade ranges. While the top of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has warned that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to produce “several” bombs, months extra would likely be had to construct a weapon and probably miniaturize it to position it on a missile — if Iran determined to pursue one. The U.S. intelligence group has maintained its review that Iran isn’t pursuing an atomic bomb.

Iran has taken steps in contemporary months to settle some issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the advances in its program have resulted in fears of a much broader regional conflagration as Israel, itself a nuclear energy, has stated it might now not permit Tehran to broaden the bomb. Israel bombed each Iraq and Syria to forestall their nuclear methods, giving the risk extra weight as it is also suspected in sporting out a sequence of killings concentrated on Iran’s nuclear scientists.

Iran additionally provides Russia with the bomb-carrying drones Moscow makes use of to focus on websites in Ukraine in its conflict on Kyiv, which stays any other primary dispute between Tehran and Washington.

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Associated Press author Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this record.