At least three Iranian-Americans are being held in Iran, including businessman Siamak Namazi.
By Le Figaro with AFP
Published
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L’Iran indicated on Sunday March 12 that everything was “readyto carry out a prisoner exchange with the United States, which could materialize quickly if Washington wished.
«Over the past few days, we have reached an agreement on a prisoner exchange between Iran and the United States. If all goes well on the American side, I think we will be able to attend in the near future“said the head of Iranian diplomacy Hossein Amir-Abdollahian during a television interview. “For us, everything is ready. The US side is working on its final technical preparations“, he added.
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At least three Iranian-Americans are being held in Iran, including the businessman Siamak Prayer, who gave an unpublished interview to CNN from his cell in Evin prison in Tehran. For its part, the Iranian judicial authority had reported in August of the detention “tensof Iranian nationals in the United States, including Reza Sarhangpour and Kambiz Attar Kashani, accused of havingcircumvented US sanctionstaken against Tehran.
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Since the two countries do not maintain diplomatic relations, an agreement on the exchange has been “signed and approved indirectlybetween Iranians and Americans in March 2022, Amir-Abdollahian said, calling it “purely humanitarian“. In the CNN interview that aired March 9, Siamak Namazi appealed to President Joe Biden to “put the freedom of innocent Americans above politicsby promoting their release. This businessman was arrested in October 2015 and sentenced to ten years in prison for espionage. Sentenced to the same sentence, his father Mohammad Baquer Namazi, 85, was released in 2020 from serving his sentence and was able to leave Iran in October 2022.
Other prisoners include Iranian-American investor Emad Sharqi, sentenced to ten years in prison for espionage according to Iranian media, and Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American also with British nationality, arrested in January 2018 and sentenced to ten years in prison forconspiracy with america“. At least 16 Western passport holders, including six French, are being held in Iran. Tehran refuses to recognize dual nationality and announced in January the execution of British-Iranian Alireza Akbari, accused of spying for the United Kingdom, which he had always denied.
