Americans moved out of prison in deal that could see US releasing Iranian funds and prisoners

CNN

By Christiane Amanpour, Jennifer Hansler and Kylie Atwood, CNN

(CNN) — Five Americans who had been imprisoned in Iran are now under house arrest – the first step in a deal between the United States and Iran that would include making $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds more accessible to Tehran in exchange for their return to the US.

Four of the Americans – Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz, and a fourth American who has not been identified publicly – were moved out of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison on Thursday, a source familiar with the deal said. The fifth American, who also has not been publicly identified, was already under house arrest.

The source described Thursday’s development as “an encouraging step,” noting that there’s “a roadmap that has basically been agreed.” However, they said that “there’s a number of things here that that still need to be worked out” in the prospective deal to bring the Americans home to the United States.

Among the roadmap are plans to make $6 billion in Iranian funds that have been in a restricted account in South Korea more readily available for “non-sanctionable trade” of goods like food and medicine. The source said that this would not be giving new funds to Iran, noting that those funds are currently in South Korean accounts and able to be used for humanitarian purposes and non-sanctionable trade. There have been challenges in converting the Korean currency.

There is also expected to be a prisoner swap component to the deal, though the source said that “no prisoners held in the US will be released in exchange for these Americans moving to house arrest.”

“There’s kind of a step-by-step process that’s going to unfold. So, the first step is getting our people out of prison,” the source said. Iran will not immediately “gain any benefit” on Thursday, the source added.

“Then there will be arrangements in place we’ve agreed to do some things, Iran has agreed to do some things that will eventually lead to the Americans coming home,” they said.

The source did not get into specific details about the next steps, saying it was “too early” to do that.

“This has been a very intensive process of negotiations with the Iranians,” the source said, noting that the US had worked with partners including Qatar, Oman and Switzerland, which serves as the US protecting power in Iran. The US does not have diplomatic relations with Tehran and therefore has no embassy or diplomats on the ground in the country. Iraq and the United Arab Emirates also played a role, the source said.

The source familiar told reporters that US was “very clear with the Iranians that to get anywhere the Americans have to be out of Evin Prison.”

On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that his country has “been swapping messages with the American side through Qatar and Oman for months.”

“To us, a prisoner swap is a purely humanitarian issue and we have set no pre-conditions for that. We have told the intermediaries that we are ready for the swap within a mutually agreed framework,” he said on the sidelines of the Iran-BRICS meeting in Tehran.

The Americans publicly known to be in the deal – Namazi, Shargi, and Tahbaz – have spent years in prison there. Namazi is the longest-held American in Iran, arrested in 2015 while on a business trip. He was charged with having “relations with a hostile state,” referring to the US. Namazi is a dual Iranian-US citizen. His father, Baquer Namazi, was released in order to receive medical treatment in October 2022 after more than six years in detention in Iran.

Shargi, a businessman, and Tahbaz, an environmentalist, were first arrested in 2018. They too are dual Iranian-US citizens.

All three have been declared wrongfully detained by the US State Department.

In March, in an unprecedented interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour from inside Evin Prison, Namazi made an emotional plea to US President Joe Biden to put the “liberty of innocent Americans above politics” and ramp up efforts to secure his release.

“I remain deeply worried that the White House just doesn’t appreciate how dire our situation has become,” said Namazi, who had been left behind in a deal under the Obama administration.

Namazi’s family, as well as the Shargi and Tahbaz families, had made urgent calls for the Biden administration to intensify efforts to bring their loved ones home.

“President Biden and his administration have repeatedly told our families that our loved ones are priority, so we are imploring that he grants us our one request to meet with us and to hear our plights firsthand,” Tara Tahbaz, Morad’s daughter, said in March.

“There’s no politically correct time to make a move to bring them home,” she said.

The source familiar with the negotiations said Biden “has been focused on this really since the first day in office.”

“I think his record demonstrates his intensive focus on bringing Americans home, of course under conditions that we believe are in our interests. We believe what has been arranged here very much is,” they said.

The negotiations over the detained Americans are separate from discussions over Iran’s nuclear program, the source said, but noted that if the Americans are ultimately freed, “it could perhaps help facilitate discussions in other areas.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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