On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN International’s “Amanpour,” Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department Roger Carstens stated that Russia made it “pretty clear, immediately” that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich “was being taken and used as a bargaining chip against the United States.” But prisoner swaps haven’t incentivized further hostage-taking.
Carstens said, “I have to say, with Evan, it was just so right in your face. He was just recently accredited again by the Russians, his visa was approved. He was arrested, and the next day, the FSB put out a press release. It was pretty clear, immediately, that Evan was being taken and used as a bargaining chip against the United States. With the other two cases that have recently popped in the last few months, we’re still going through the determination process, gathering information that we can present to the secretary for him to eventually make a decision.”
He added, “You would think that common sense would tell you that if we bargain to get — bring back Americans, that the other sides out there would go and grab more Americans. But what we’re finding is, the statistics, the mathematics don’t really add up in that direction. There was a time when I had over 50 cases, not all that long ago. Right now, my numbers are hovering and bouncing in between 20 and 30. So, our numbers are actually going down, and we’re finding that a lot of these countries that have had a tendency to take Americans are not necessarily going back out to restock the pond, as we say.”
Later, Carstens stated, “Secretary Blinken about — over two-and-a-half years ago, charged me with trying to work on a deterrence effort that will, one day, put this horrific practice on the dustbin of history. And we’ve been working with like-minded partners and allies ever since. There’s a great effort being led by the Canadians, who put out the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations a little over two years ago, and, right now, we have 75 signatories who’ve signed up to support this effort. And we’re trying to work with these like-minded countries to find tools that could be used to levy against countries that seem to take people and use them as political bargaining chips. And the goal is to — if you can build a coalition of like-minded countries, maybe 10, 20, 30, 40 countries who are willing to actually take action when a country takes a citizen of one of them as a hostage, then we might find a way to raise the price of other countries taking our citizens and have this problem go away. I would be thrilled if, in ten to fifteen years, I get to dismantle my office, because we’ve found a way to actually deter this practice.”
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