ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The US and Iran are in indirect talks over the return of at least four American hostages held by Tehran, an official said on Tuesday amid nuclear deal tensions.
As negotiators continue to work to revive the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, Washington and Tehran are in indirect discussion over the release of several Americans held by the latter, Roger Carstens, US special envoy for hostages affairs told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda.
“We are hopeful that they [the talks] succeed. Sadly I cannot get in any results or any details of these conversations … the bottom line is I think in a case like this it is going to come for the result of ongoing dialogue and whether that be with Iran or other countries where we feel the country might have our Americans held wrongfully,” Carstens said.
Arrests of foreigners in Iran - especially dual nationals who are often accused of espionage - have multiplied since former US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from a nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and re-imposed harsh sanctions against Tehran.
Dual nationals from various countries have been detained in Iran, in what campaigners and the British government say are a policy of hostage-taking aimed at pressuring the West.
At least 15 dual nationals are held in Iran, either imprisoned or under house arrest, the Center for Human Rights in Iran said in its report on detained dual nationals updated on July 5.
Of that group, at least four Iranian-Americans are held on vague spying charges.
“Everyone is working tirelessly to make sure these Americans come home,” Carstens said.
Iran has conducted several exchanges of foreign prisoners, including researchers, with countries holding Iranian nationals.
Washington last year said they were holding “indirect” prisoner exchange talks with Iran.
A detained US Navy veteran returned on the same day an Iranian doctor returned from the US in June of last year.
Poland on Thursday confirmed that a scientist was in Iranian custody, with Austria and the UK rejecting Iranian claims of the arrest of their diplomats.
A French-Iranian academic was sent back to prison from house arrest in January.
The British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released in March following six years of detention in Iran. Amnesty International last month called on the British government to investigate her detention.
Rights groups and watchdogs have repeatedly slammed Iran for using dual and foreign nationals as “political bargaining chips.”
