Seven dual-nationals, including Washington Post reporter Rezaian, freed in prisoner swap
Seven dual-nationals, including Washington Post reporter Rezaian, freed in prisoner swap
The implementation of a nuclear deal with Iran, which will end international sanctions against Tehran, is on track to be completed, with a few technical issues remaining, a senior US state department official said on Saturday.
“There is no delay but we have some technical clarifications currently taking place,” the official said. “The timing of implementation day is not related at all to the American citizenrelease issue,” the official added.
But even as the diplomatic maneuvering on the nuclear issue dragged on into the afternoon, progress appeared to be developing on another area of Iran-US tensions.
Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent, was reportedly among four Iranian-Americans freed on Saturday in a prisoner swap, as a nuclear deal with world powers was set to be sealed.
State television and the judiciary said the four were released in exchange for seven Iranians in US custody, naming those freed by Iran as Rezaian, Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati and Nosratollah Khosravi.
Mr Rezaian is a dual Iran-US citizen convicted of espionage by Iran in a closed-door trial in 2015. The Post and the US government have denied the accusations, as has Mr Rezaian.
In Vienna. Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke ahead of a series of meetings with his European Union and US counterparts — including US secretary of state John Kerry — on implementing the accord.
“All oppressive sanctions imposed against Iran will be annulled today,” Mr Zarif said on Iranian state TV — a reference to the start of the process that will end financial and other penalties imposed on his country once the UN agency says Tehran has fulfilled its obligations to restrict its nuclear programs in the deal reached last summer.
Certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency would allow Iran to immediately recoup some $100 billion in assets frozen overseas. The benefits of new oil, trade and financial opportunities from suspended sanctions could prove far more valuable for Tehran in the long run.
Mr Kerry and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini were in Vienna, headquarters to the IAEA, for separate meetings with Mr Zarif.
Despite Mr Zarif’s optimistic comments about the approaching end to sanctions, both he and Mr Kerry deflected a question about whether their deal would be implemented later in the day.
“We’re working on it,” added Mr Kerry, seated across the table from Mr Zarif in an ornate room at a luxury Vienna hotel.
In his earlier comments to Iranian television, Mr Zarif said that the deal between his country and the six world powers would hold, telling Iranian media that all parties would “not allow the outcome of these talks to be wasted.”
The agreement, struck after decades of hostility, defused the likelihood of US or Israeli military action against Iran, something Mr Zarif alluded to.
“Our region has been freed from shadow of an unnecessary conflict that could have caused concerns for the region,” he said. “Today is also a good day for the world. Today will prove that we can solve important problems through diplomacy.”
Iran insists all of its nuclear activities are peaceful. But under the July 14 deal, Iran agreed to crimp programs which could be used to make nuclear weapons in return for an end to sanctions.
