Sept. 18 (UPI) — A key Iranian official said the United States and Iran were set to complete a prisoner swap on Monday, which includes the release of $6 billion of frozen Iranian assets.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the frozen funds “will be delivered” on Monday, cementing the swap which will see each side release five prisoners.
The five Americans include Siamak Namazi, a 51-year-old Iranian-American oil executive first detained in 2015; Emad Shargi a 58-year-old U.S. businessman detained in 2018 and released briefly in 2019, only to be arrested again in 2020 and 67-year-old Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American conservationist with British citizenship, and has been in custody since 2018.
The other two Americans set to be released requested that their identities not be shared.
The five Iranians identified as Mahrdad Moein Ansari, Kambiz Attar Kashani, Reza Sarhangpour Kofrani, Amin Hassanzadeh and Kaveh Loftollah Afrasiabi had been detained over sanctions violations, according to state-run Press TV.
Kanaani said two of the detained Iranians would return to Iran, while one would travel to a third country to reunite with his family and the other two would remain in the United States
The five Americans are expected to fly to Qatar before being transferred to flights back to Washington.
The deal comes with the United States unfreezing $6 billion of Iranian oil revenue for humanitarian causes, which will be overseen by Qatar. Those uses include purchases for food, agricultural goods and medicine.
Critics of the deal have said the United States doesn’t have the ability to police such requests and transfers, allowing Iran to abuse the details of the agreement.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said last week that the frozen Iranian funds will be transferred from banks in South Korea to accounts controlled by Qatar, where Iran will have access to them.
National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby insisted that there will be adequate oversight of the funds and rejected charges that the deal amounts to a blank check for Iran.
“It’s Iranian money that had been established in these accounts to allow some trade from foreign countries on things like Iranian oil,” Kirby said. “They don’t get to spend it any way they want. It’s not $6 billion all at once. They will have to make a request for withdrawals for humanitarian purposes only.”
