Iran, US on verge of prisoner swap under Qatar-mediated deal

DUBAI: When $6 billion of unfrozen Iranian funds are wired to banks in Qatar as early as this week, it will trigger a carefully choreographed sequence that will see as many as five detained US dual nationals leave Iran and a similar number of Iranian prisoners held in the US fly home, according to eight Iranian and other sources familiar with the negotiations.

As a first step, Iran on Aug 10 released four US citizens from Tehran’s Evin prison into house arrest, where they joined a fifth, who was already under house arrest. Later that day US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the move the first step of a process that would lead to their return home.

They include businessmen Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Sharqi, 59, as well as environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who also holds British nationality, the US administration has said. The Tahbaz and Shargi families did not respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for the Namazi family declined to comment.

The identities of the fourth and fifth Americans, one of whom according to two sources is a woman, have not been disclosed. At the centre of the negotiations that forged this deal between the superpower which Iran brands the “Great Satan” and the Islamic Republic which Washington calls a state sponsor of terrorism is the tiny but hugely rich state of Qatar.

Doha hosted at least eight rounds of talks involving Iranian and US negotiators sitting in separate hotels speaking via shuttle diplomacy, a source briefed on the discussions said, with the earlier sessions focused mainly on the thorny nuclear issue and the later ones on the prisoner releases.

Doha will implement a financial arrangement under which it will pay banking fees and monitor how Iran spends the unfrozen cash to ensure no money is spent on items under US sanctions, and the prisoners will transit Qatar when they are swapped, according to three of the sources.

“Iran initially wanted direct access to the funds but in the end agreed to having access via Qatar,” said a senior diplomat. “Iran will purchase food and medicine and Qatar will pay directly.”

A State Department spokesperson said the US was not ready to announce the exact timing of the prisoner release. The department also declined to discuss the details of what the spokesperson termed “an ongoing and highly sensitive negotiation.

The US administration has not commented on the timing of the funds transfer. However, on Sept 5, South Korean foreign minister Park Jin said efforts were under way to transfer Iran’s funds.

“The US-Iran relationship is not one characterised by trust. We judge Iran by its actions, nothing else,” the State Department spokesperson added.

Washington consented to the movement of Iranian funds from South Korea to restricted accounts held by financial institutions in Qatar, but no money is going to Iran directly, the spokesperson added.The sources’ account of the negotiation shows how the deal sidestepped the main US-Iran dispute over Iran’s nuclear aims, culminating in a rare moment of cooperation between the long-time adversaries, at odds on a host of issues from Iran’s nuclear program to the US military presence in the Gulf.