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Iranian officials have met recently with Iranian prisoners in the United States to see if they would be willing to return to Iran if a prisoner swap was agreed, according to Reuters.
Following last year’s historic nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers, some Iranian prisoners in the U.S. hope for an early release.
Iranian officials have repeatedly raised the idea of a prisoner swap, suggesting that Americans jailed in Iran could be exchanged with Iranians held by the United States for violating sanctions. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said in an interview with CBS in September that he is open to some kind of prisoner swap.
A prisoner exchange could involve the release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who has been jailed in Iran for almost 18 months on spying charges, and three other Iranian-Americans.
The news agency Reuters have identified 12 Iranians in the United States who are imprisoned or face charges for violating economic sanctions by attempting to sell technology to Iran that could have helped its nuclear and military programs.
According to Reuters’ report, Iranian officials have met with some of these prisoners.
One of them, Hosseini, told Reuters that a representative of the Iranian government, whose surname he said was Jahansoozan, told him by phone that a swap might be possible.
Fariborz Jahansoozan, an official at the Iranian interests section in Washington declined, according to Reuters, to comment on the cases or on whether he had met with prisoners.
“We're just doing the consular work here in Washington and we are not in any way informed of what's going on in Iran with respect to this issue,” Jahansoozan was quoted as saying.
The news agency examined thousands of pages of court records, and interviewed family members and attorneys, uncovering new details about the 12 men, 11 of whom have U.S. citizenship. Reuters spoke to lawyers for 10 of the men, who said their clients “pose no threat to national security and in most cases were motivated by financial gain rather than ideological support or close political ties to Iran.”
Read the full article via Reuters.
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