The United States will not take part in a prisoner swap demanded by an Islamist terrorist group who are believed to have beheaded a Japanese hostage in the Middle East.
“Our policies on this are pretty well set,” White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We don’t get into negotiations with terrorists.”
images that appeared online this weekend appear to show that one of the two Japanese hostages had been killed by the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The image appears to show hostage Kenji Goto holding up a photograph of a beheaded corpse that authorities believe is that of the second hostage, Goto’s friend, Haruna Yukawa.
ISIS had demanded $200 million in ransom from the government of Japan.
“We don’t pay ransom, because that cash then fuels further kidnappings, which just continues to exacerbate the problem,” McDonough said. “So we’re not going to do that.”
President Obama, who is traveling in India, called Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe early Sunday morning to express condolences for Yukawa’s slaying and “to convey solidarity with the Japanese people,” according to a White House summary of the call.
In return for Goto’s release, ISIS is now demanding the release of Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman who was accused of attempting to serve as a suicide bomber in Jordan in 2005. She was part of attacks there that killed more than 50 people.
Asked by host Chris Wallace whether the U.S. would advise the Japanese against ransoms and prisoner swaps, McDonough said he wouldn’t converse with the Japanese government through “Fox News Sunday.” Asked whether the proposed swap was another form of ransom, McDonough said, “That’s the way we’ve treated it.”
This story initially published at 11:15 a.m. and has been updated since then.
