Four of the American prisoners, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, were freed in exchange for Washington pardoning seven Iranians accused of sanctions-busting.
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Also Monday, Yukiya Amano, the head of the world’s nuclear watchdog, said Iran has agreed to strengthen its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
That came as part of a prisoner exchange as US and European sanctions on the country were lifted in the deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program. And as a result, the United States is imposing sanctions on individuals and companies working to advance Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Nevertheless, he promised to continue monitoring Iran’s nuclear program and said he would work to restrain terrorist activity and human rights abuses.
Saturday’s developments brought to fruition a deal struck last summer on the 18th day of last-ditch talks in Vienna, capped more than two years of wrangling between Iran and the U.S., China, Russia, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
Many local Iranian-Americans who gathered in Westwood said they were encouraged by the deal.
Obama described the release of six Iranian-Americans and one Iranian charged in the United States as a “reciprocal, humanitarian gesture” that was a one-time event.
“It actually pushed a lot of my friends away from the country just because of this”, said Pedram Farashbandi, who left Iran in 2005.
US President Barack Obama hailed the full implementation of an global nuclear accord with Tehran and the release of Americans held prisoner in Iran as a vindication of “strong American diplomacy”. The hospital is near the US military’s Ramstein Air Base.
Several Americans, unjustly detained by Iran, will be coming home, Obama said.
“Iran will respond to such (U.S.) acts of propaganda and harassment by seriously continuing its missile program and enhancing its defensive capabilities and national security”, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said at his weekly press briefing.
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To settle the Iranian claim, which had been hanging in the Hague Tribunal since 1981, the U.S.is returning the money in the fund along with “a roughly $1.3 billion compromise on the interest”, the U.S. State Department statement said.
