Get free updates on US-Iran tensions
We will send you a myFT daily summary email summarizing the latest US-Iranian tensions news every morning.
The United States and Iran are close to concluding a prisoner swap after months of negotiations, a move that Washington hopes will open the door to a de-escalation of tensions between the arch foes.
In a carefully sequential process, five US-Iranian nationals will be released by the Islamic Republic on Monday and flown to Qatar, while the US will also release five Iranians from US prisons.
The exchange is to take place after $6 billion in Iranian oil revenues, frozen in South Korea, were transferred to bank accounts in Qatar, where the funds will be monitored to ensure Iran uses the money for property not affected by sanctions.
Nasser Kanaani, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said he hoped the transfer of assets to a “friendly country” would be completed on Monday and the prisoners exchanged.
Qatari officials confirmed to both sides that the $6 billion was transferred from South Korea, via Switzerland, to bank accounts in Qatar, a person briefed on the process told the Financial Times. A Qatari plane was on standby in Tehran, waiting to take American citizens to Doha on Monday morning, the source said.
The release of the prisoners comes after months of indirect talks between the United States and Iran, facilitated by Qatar and Oman. The hope is that this will help establish a level of trust that will create the conditions for further discussions about Iran’s muscular nuclear program.
The United States and Iran are also discussing how to defuse tensions and contain the nuclear issue, even as Tehran continues to enrich uranium. This involves Iran agreeing not to target the Americans and to limit its uranium enrichment to 60 percent purity, a level below that for weapons manufacturing.
Iran, in return, expects Washington to refrain from imposing additional sanctions that would further stifle the economy.
The United States has also pushed Tehran to stop selling to Moscow drones and spare parts that Russian forces have used in the war in Ukraine, an Iranian official told the FT. Tehran denies exporting weapons to Russia for use in the war, and no deal has yet been reached, people briefed on the negotiations said.
Still, some believe the prisoner exchange can at least help contain a nuclear crisis and mitigate the risks of a resumption of conflict in the Middle East.
“The release of the Iranian hostages was a key first step for the Biden administration to manage and contain a cascade of crises linked to Iran’s advanced and unconstrained nuclear program ahead of the US election year,” said Sanam Vakil, Director of the Middle East at Chatham House. . “Moreover [US president Joe] Biden can show he kept his promise to repatriate unjustly detained U.S. citizens.
The crisis has been brewing dangerously since US President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and imposed hundreds of sanctions on Iran, which has strangled the republic’s economy.
Diplomatic efforts to revive the 2015 deal after the Biden administration took office have failed and few believe the deal can be saved given the scale of Iran’s nuclear advances .
U.S. officials say Iran has the capacity to produce enough fissile material to develop a nuclear weapon in about two weeks.
Analysts say the Biden administration’s best hope is to contain the crisis and seek to return to serious nuclear negotiations if the US president wins a second term. “The broader question of the Biden administration’s Iran policy, beyond campaign promises and crisis management, remains unclear,” Vakil said.
For Iran, the $6 billion thaw will provide vital hard currency as the country grapples with economic malaise, with inflation topping 40 percent.
The United States also wants Iran to improve cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the republic’s nuclear activity.
But signals from Tehran have been mixed, with signs that the country has slowed the pace at which it enriches near-weapons-grade uranium, while continuing to frustrate the IAEA in other areas.
The nuclear watchdog last week condemned Iran for barring IAEA inspectors from participating in its monitoring program.
Among the Iranian-American dual nationals released from Iran are Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz, Siamak Namazi and two others who did not wish to be identified.
Namazi is an Iranian-American businessman who was arrested about eight years ago and sentenced to 10 years in prison on allegations of collaborating with the United States against the Islamic republic. Tahbaz is a businessman and environmental activist who holds Iranian, American and British nationalities. Shargi is an Iranian-American businessman. Both were arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison on similar charges of collaboration with the United States.
The identities of the Iranians who will be released from American prisons have not been released. Kanaani said two of the Iranians detained in the United States would return to the Islamic Republic, while another would go to a third country and two would remain in the United States.
