Iranian officials said Rezaian, 39, was freed from Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison after 18 months of captivity and was to be promptly flown out of the country with the three other released detainees.
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News of the exchange came as world leaders converged here Saturday in anticipation of the end of global sanctions against Iran in exchange for significantly curtailing its nuclear program.
“After the nuclear deal was completed, the discussions between our governments accelerated”.
“The United States also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful”.
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian was scheduled to be released Saturday to the USA after more than 500 days in Iranian captivity.
The situation of the fifth prisoner, identified by USA officials as Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, was not immediately known.
Robert Levinson, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and DEA agent, who disappeared in Iran since 2007, was not on the list.
Ryan, Jr., publisher of The Washington Post, said early Sunday that Rezaian and his wife had safely left.
The U.S. captives in Iran had not committed any crimes and did not have intelligence ties, administration officials said, and Obama mandated that the United States not release anyone with terrorism ties or those who had committed violent crimes.
Among American politicians, Republican presidential contenders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., gave cautious praise to the release of the prisoners, particularly Abedini, but said they never should have been held in the first place.
According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, the four were ordered released in exchange for six Iranian-Americans held in the United States on sanctions-related charges. The decades that the US and Iran spent not engaging with each other didn’t advance USA interests, he said, while diplomacy – not war – led to the “historic success” evidenced this weekend. The IAEA is also charged with monitoring the country’s program for years to come to ensure that Iran is not moving toward nuclear weapons production.
“This has been an answer to prayer”, Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh, said in a statement released by the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Christian-based group. They were accused in 2015 of shipping electronics to Iran. There were conflicting reports about the name of the fourth American freed. “At this point, we are hoping and praying for Amir’s long-awaited return”, the statement read.
“The Iranians said they wanted a goodwill gesture on our part as a reciprocal measure”.
Obama spoke as the Americans were on their way to Switzerland, a day after their release as part of a prisoner swap.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a US news organization advocate for one of their journalists as well as WaPo did with Rezaian”, Arash Karami of AI-Monitor tweeted.
But Rouhani noted bitter opposition to the lifting of economic curbs from Israel, some members of the U.S. Congress and what he called “warmongers” in the region – an apparent reference to some of Iran’s Gulf Arab adversaries, not least Saudi Arabia.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran had scaled back its nuclear programme.
Iran has denied any knowledge of his whereabouts.
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All seven of the Iranians released are legally allowed to stay in the USA, and some have indicated that they do not want to return to Iran.
