Prisoner exchange: A noticeable change in Iran’s position on the issue of kidnappers

Islam Mohammed

Remarkable change is now taking place by Iran on the issue of kidnapped Western citizens, where Tehran offered to exchange these detainees with Western countries, in exchange for the release of their arrested agents inside those countries.

This comes on the background of their involvement in the smuggling networks established by the Iranian regime to circumvent the sanctions imposed on it because of the nuclear program.

Prisoners exchange

Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, confirmed that his country is ready to exchange prisoners with the United States and European countries, saying: “We have officially announced our readiness, through messages conveyed by third parties, and we have proposed the exchange of specific prisoners, and some deals have been completed.”

He pointed out that about 20 Iranians are being held in the United States on charges of “defrauding the sanctions” and that his country is ready to solve this issue.

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said, “The Iranian researcher imprisoned in the United States, Dr. Cyrus Asgari, said that he was infected with coronavirus and will be examined again and if the test result is negative, he will return to Iran soon.”

Asgari has been detained since November 2019, on US soil, on charges related to theft of trade secrets.

It is reported that last year Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif said that the talks reached a dead end with the United States, on the exchange of detainees, through the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which represents US interests there.

It is noteworthy that, last December, Tehran and Washington implemented a prisoner exchange deal. The former released a Chinese-American researcher convicted of spying for the United States, which in turn released an Iranian scientist.

US President Donald Trump thanked Iran after the deal was concluded, which he described as “very fair”, indicating the possibility of reaching an agreement between the two parties.

For his part, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rubaie said that Iranian detainees in American prisons are being held in unsanitary conditions.

The problem of dual nationalities is a crisis in Iran, because its system does not recognize dual nationality and treats them as Iranian citizens, but in fact it uses them to blackmail countries that bear their nationalities and exert diplomatic pressure on them. So, one of the declared reasons for imposing US sanctions on Tehran in 2018 was not to release US citizens being held.

Anoush Ashouri, a British detainee in Iran’s prisons, said, through audio notes leaked from his prisoner income that the inmates suspected of the deadly disease disappear completely, or they are returned to the cells anesthetized in hypnotic doses, without taking precautions, revealing that a number of prisoners appeared have symptoms of coronavirus and not all of them have been examined.

UN human rights experts recently called on Tehran to immediately release thousands of local and foreign activists in its prisons.