/ world today news/ The United States and Iran are negotiating to exchange five prisoners held in Iran for five prisoners held in the United States.
The deal has not yet been settled and it may be some time before the prisoners return home, but it is set in motion as Iran has moved the five prisoners under house arrest, some of them being brought out of Tehran’s infamous Evin prison.
Qatar, Oman and Switzerland play a role in the deal, and when it is settled, $6 billion will be converted into euros in a South Korean bank account that holds frozen Iranian funds.
Once the US dollars are converted to euros, they will be transferred to a bank in Qatar, which will allow Iran access, but the account will be restricted to food and humanitarian needs.
Tensions between the US and Iran have increased since President Trump withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure the strictly peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program, signed on July 14, 2015.
Trump’s action was a courtship of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has long threatened a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. At a time when Israel is facing civil war due to internal problems, Netanyahu is still threatening an attack to disperse opposition to his government.
Since taking office, President Biden’s administration has sought a new deal with Iran to curb uranium enrichment. However, the negotiations did not lead to results. Experts have said this latest prisoner swap could be a small step toward reviving the depleted diplomatic dialogue between the US and Iran.
Trump’s decision to leave the JCPOA in 2018 allowed Iran to increase uranium enrichment to 60% purity, below the 90% required to produce a nuclear weapon.
Biden has asked Iran to reduce uranium enrichment, hand over several American prisoners, withdraw its support for Russia and avoid targeted attacks on American forces stationed in the Middle East. Iran has agreed in principle to stop stockpiling uranium enriched to 60% and is now conducting a prisoner exchange.
Iran has previously cooperated with UN nuclear inspectors and provided them with some information about past nuclear activities in question. A report from UN inspectors is expected at the end of this month, possibly to coincide with the prisoner exchange.
Siamak Namazi, 51, Emad Sharghi, 58, and Morad Tahbaz, 67, are three of the five in the proposed prisoner swap. The names of the fourth and fifth American citizens have not been released.
Iran’s embassy to the United Nations said: “As part of a humanitarian cooperation agreement mediated by a third country, Iran and the United States have mutually agreed to release and pardon five prisoners.”
“Moving these prisoners out of prison marks a significant initial step in the implementation of this agreement,” the Iranians added.
Tehran scaled back its nuclear program in 2015 in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions, but after Trump’s disastrous break with the deal in 2018, he imposed additional sanctions under his “maximum pressure” policy, and Biden has also continued to impose new ones. sanctions on Iran.
The China-brokered deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia gives the Middle East hope for a peaceful and prosperous future.
Netanyahu has set two main goals for his administration. He wants Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords with Israel and greatly expand Jewish settlements in the Occupied Western Area of Palestine.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said that no deal can be reached with Israel until the rights of the Palestinian people are first settled with Israel.
In my view, all the military tension that the US has created recently in the Middle East by sending the US aircraft carrier with 3,000 marines on board to the Arabian Gulf and the military reinforcements east of Syria is aimed at promoting negotiations on many issues affecting the region and the role played by the US.
Translation: SM
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