Iranian state television said the seven Iranians – Nader Modanlou, Baharam Mechanic, Khosrow Afghahi, Arash Ghahreman, Tooraj Faridi, Nima Golestaneh, and Ali Saboonchi – “will be freed today”.
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The BBC reports on Iran’s reactions to new sanctions against its ballistic missile programme and breaks down the sanctions that are now lifted as part of the nuclear deal.
“Iran’s missile program has never been created to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said, according to the ISNA news agency.
“Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat to regional and global security, and it will continue to be subject to worldwide sanctions”, Adam J. Szubin, acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement.
Our President is more confident than ever that “this is a good day”, for Iran and other countries.
“Praise God that the prisoners are coming home, that the Americans are coming home”, Cruz said during an interview on Fox News on Sunday.
The US had launched the sanctions on Sunday amid worries that Iran’s ballistic missile program would be used to carry atomic warheads.
The sailors were released after Kerry’s intervention with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The case was set to go trial later this year, but now thanks to President Obama’s pardons, the case is over. “So there was a symmetry here”, Kerry said. “I thought it was done”.
The Swiss foreign ministry said the prisoner swap followed 14 months of confidential discussions in Switzerland.
He described the negotiations as hard, especially as the Iranians made what he said were unacceptable demands.
“But there have to be an enforcement of our principles and our standards here”.
Which Americans were freed in the swap?
US President Barack Obama praised the powers of diplomacy, stating that his decision to engage with Iran directly had been more effective than the approaches over the last decades. By Saturday night, those sanctions had been rescinded.
“All’s well that ends well”, he said.
The family of former US Marine Hekmati, who faced a death sentence as an alleged spy, welcomed the news that he had left Iran. There were apparently crew rest issues.
The 39-year-old Rezaian, a dual US-Iranian citizen born in California, was detained in Iran on July 22, 2014 on espionage charges.
His remarks were an implicit rebuke to Republicans, who have criticized the president, a Democrat, for his engagement with a country that has always been an enemy of the United States.
“Israel’s policy has been and will remain exactly what has been followed: to not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons”, Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday.
Saudi Arabia, however, remains implacably at loggerheads with Iran.
“They’re civilians, and their release is a one-time gesture to Iran given the unique opportunity offered by this moment and the larger circumstances at play”, Obama said. “We will catch them if they try to cheat”. “He specifically said Syria and Yemen”. Marco Rubio, said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
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Is Iran holding any other Americans?
