(The Guardian) Iran releases five jailed Americans in return for $6bn in oil money
Five Americans detained in Iran are on their way home after the Biden administration brokered a deal for their release in exchange for unfreezing $6b in oil money.
Here’s the latest on the prisoner swap, from the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour: Five US prisoners detained in Iran, some for nearly a decade, have left the country by plane to Qatar, as part of a controversial prisoner swap involving the unfreezing by the Biden administration of $6bn (£4.8bn) of Iranian oil money.
Tehran and Washington had agreed to swap five prisoners each, including the conservationist Morad Tahbaz, a British-American citizen.
In an elaborate and delicate diplomatic deal, months in the making, the five Americans were taken from hotels in Tehran to a plane bound for Qatar, the first stage in a journey that would take them on flights to Washington.
Qatar has been acting as the mediator for the deal, commencing with the electronic transfer of the Iranian cash to bank accounts in Qatar and Switzerland. The prisoners were allowed to board the plane only after the cash transfer was completed. Apart from Tahbaz, the identity of only two other Americans has been made public.
Republican senators in the US and some former Iranian political detainees have accused Joe Biden of striking a deal that will only encourage Iran to keep hostage-taking as a central part of its diplomatic arsenal. The US state department says the money that is being released is oil money owed to Iran and frozen by the Trump administration in 2018 when the US left the Iran nuclear deal.
Five Americans detained in Iran are on their way home after the Biden administration brokered a deal for their release in exchange for unfreezing $6b in oil money.
Here’s the latest on the prisoner swap, from the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour: Five US prisoners detained in Iran, some for nearly a decade, have left the country by plane to Qatar, as part of a controversial prisoner swap involving the unfreezing by the Biden administration of $6bn (£4.8bn) of Iranian oil money.
Tehran and Washington had agreed to swap five prisoners each, including the conservationist Morad Tahbaz, a British-American citizen.
In an elaborate and delicate diplomatic deal, months in the making, the five Americans were taken from hotels in Tehran to a plane bound for Qatar, the first stage in a journey that would take them on flights to Washington.
Qatar has been acting as the mediator for the deal, commencing with the electronic transfer of the Iranian cash to bank accounts in Qatar and Switzerland. The prisoners were allowed to board the plane only after the cash transfer was completed. Apart from Tahbaz, the identity of only two other Americans has been made public.
Republican senators in the US and some former Iranian political detainees have accused Joe Biden of striking a deal that will only encourage Iran to keep hostage-taking as a central part of its diplomatic arsenal. The US state department says the money that is being released is oil money owed to Iran and frozen by the Trump administration in 2018 when the US left the Iran nuclear deal.
