Iranian foreign ministry ready for prisoner exchange with US

Aveen Karim

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iranian foreign minister said on Saturday that a prisoner swap with the United States was possible as the arrests of foreigners in Iran has multiplied since the former American president unilaterally withdrew his country from a nuclear deal with Tehran almost four years ago.

Speaking on a panel at the Munich Security Conference (MSC), Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iran was ready for an immediate prisoner exchange, despite the ongoing talks aimed at restoring the nuclear deal.

"We believe prisoner swaps is a humanitarian issue...unrelated to the nuclear accord. We can do it immediately," the Iranian official told the panel at the conference.

Swapping prisoners has been a major point of contention during negotiations and a key US demand.

Arrests of foreign nationals in Iran have escalated since the US withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and it 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. Iran has conducted several exchanges of foreign prisoners under the 2015 nuclear deal, including researchers, with countries holding Iranian nationals.

On the sidelines of the MSC and in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi emphasized that the nuclear deal agreement should include the lifting of all sanctions and the provision of a guarantee that signatory members will abide by the deal, according to Iranian state media. 

Amir-Abdollahian also stressed upon Raisi’s comment, noting that a “good agreement” would only be possible if the US lifts all sanctions.

During the conference, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson tweeted that the conclusion of the agreement was now up to the US, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

 

Iran has previously said a prisoner exchange is “ready to be implemented” with the US and other countries.

Iran’s recent comments come as the US takes part in indirect talks with Tehran to revive the nuclear deal which President Joe Biden has sought to return to.

During his speech, Amir-Abdollahian stated that Iran is ready to reach an agreement to restore the nuclear deal, and expressed its willingness to “strengthen relations” with other countries in the region as Saudi Arabia expressed its willingness to schedule another round of talks with Tehran.

Speaking at the MSC on Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud said the Kingdom was seeking to schedule a fifth round of talks with Iran despite a “lack of substantive progress” during the previous rounds.

“The timing of the two statements by Iran and Saudi Arabia shows once again how the Saudi-Iran talks and the nuclear deal talks are linked, and influence each other,” Francesco Calzoni, Yemen expert at Intelyse, a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based geopolitical risk consultancy, told Rudaw English on Sunday.

Since last year, Iran and Saudi negotiators have met in Baghdad on four occasions in the presence of Iraqi officials to speak about how to resolve their differences in the Middle East, particularly when it comes to the conflict in Yemen where Iran-backed Houthi militias are known to use Iranian manufactured drones and missiles to target Saudi airports and cities.

The fifth round of talks has seen a delay as the Iraqi political actors are in the process of forming a new government following the country’s parliamentary elections, but Iraq has maintained its role in the talks.

“A Yemen ceasefire would not last without the JCPOA. Conversely, a JCPOA without a Yemen ceasefire would leave US regional allies exposed to attacks from the Houthis, with little to no political leverage left to stop them from taking military action,” Calzoni added.