(CNN) — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that the US State Department has spoken with the five Americans wrongfully detained in Iran who are now under house arrest, and four of them have been released from an Iranian prison.
“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, because there is more work to be done to bring them home, and I think this is the beginning of the end of their nightmare, the nightmare that their families lived through,” Blinken said at a joint press conference with Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcina Ibarra at the State Department. “.
He added that he “was not aware of any other Americans being unjustly detained in Iran,” and said, “I am not aware of anyone other than the five we are talking about.”
“There will be no sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for the Americans being released,” he said, adding, “Iran will not get any sanctions relief, and in any case we will be involved in such efforts to bring Americans home from Iran, Iran’s money will be used and transferred to the frozen accounts.” So that the money can only be used for humanitarian purposes, which is what is allowed under our sanctions as you know.”
He continued: “We will continue to impose all of our sanctions, and firmly address Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region and beyond, including providing Russia with drones for its war of aggression against Ukraine, and none of these efforts detract from that. These are completely separate paths. We have focused on returning our citizens to homeland, but we continue to take strong action against Iran’s other activities that we and many other countries strongly object to.”
CNN had previously reported that $6 billion of Iranian money held in a frozen account in South Korea would be more readily available for “non-sanctioned trade” in goods such as food and medicine.
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2023-08-10 22:14:52
