Iran will not receive any sanctions relief as part of a deal to secure the release of five American hostages, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, despite Tehran’s impending recovery of $6 billion.
“In any instance where we would engage in such efforts to bring Americans home from Iran, Iran’s own funds would be used,” Blinken told reporters Thursday at the State Department. “We will continue to enforce all of our sanctions.”
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Iranian officials announced the transfer of five U.S. citizens into house arrest on Thursday as part of a so-called humanitarian cooperation agreement. Blinken hailed the gesture as “the beginning of the end of their nightmare,” while Iranian officials exulted at the thought of a multibillion windfall they have sought through nearly two years of inconclusive negotiations over the renewal of a 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“The process of releasing billions of dollars of Iranian assets, illegally seized by the U.S. for several years, has commenced,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani wrote Thursday on social media. “Tehran has received the guarantee of Washington’s commitments. The release of several Iranians who were illegally detained in America is in this context.”
The deal centers on the plight of five American citizens —“Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, Emad Sharghi, and two individuals who at this time wish to remain,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said — who have been detained in Iran on various charges.
“We are in touch with the families of U.S. citizens involved, and we continue to monitor these individuals’ health and welfare closely,” Miller said. “While we welcome the news of these individuals’ release from prison to house arrest, they should never have been imprisoned in the first place. We continue to work diligently to bring these individuals home to their loved ones. They must be allowed to depart Iran and reunite with their loved ones as soon as possible.”
Their exit from the prison is part of a coordinated process to advance their release as U.S. officials orchestrate the transfer of Iranian currency reserves from the South Korean banks where they have been frozen for years. The deal also will include the release of five Iranians in American prisons.
“Iran and the US have agreed to reciprocally release and pardon five prisoners,” the Iranian mission to the United Nations told Al-Monitor. “The transfer of these prisoners to out of prison marks a significant initial step in the implementation of this agreement.”
Those reserves have loomed large in the diplomatic disputes over the possible renewal of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which then-President Donald Trump exited in 2018. They have represented “perhaps the clearest way that Iranian officials can indicate to domestic audiences that sanctions relief has been implemented,” as Bourse & Bazaar Foundation chief executive Esfandyar Batmanghelidj wrote for the United States Institute of Peace.
The case of Namazi, 51, dates back to 2015, making him the longest-held detainee in the publicly identified group, who was excluded from the 2016 deal in which then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden sent $400 million in cash to Iran, and released another group of Iranian prisoners, on the day that the nuclear deal took effect.
“While I welcome the release of American hostages, the American people should know that President Biden has authorized the largest ransom payment in American history to the mullahs in Tehran,” former Vice President Mike Pence, a long-shot candidate for the presidency in 2024, said Thursday. “Iran will now use this money to produce drones for Russia and fund terrorism against us and Israel. China and Russia, who are also holding Americans hostages, now know the price has just gone up.”
The deal drew sharp criticism even from another victim of Iran’s hostage-taking. “I am an example that the U.S. government can release American hostages WITHOUT paying ransom,” Xiyue Wang, an American citizen and Princeton University graduate student who was seized in 2016 during a research trip to Iran and released in a 2019 prisoner exchange. “Biden’s terrible deal is putting more Americans in danger.”
Iranian officials seized Wang in August 2016, about seven months after the previous deal.
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Blinken maintained that the administration can manage the national security tensions with Iran while also working for the release of these Americans.
“We will continue to push back resolutely against Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region and beyond, including now in supplying Russia with drones for its war of aggression against Ukraine,” he said. “And none of these efforts take away from that. These are entirely separate tracks. We focused on getting our people home, but we continue to take strong action against Iran’s other activities that we and so many other countries profoundly object to.”
