Four Iranian-American citizens freed by Iran in a prisoner swap with the United States have left Tehran and are flying to Bern in Switzerland, Iranian state television reported today.
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Last July, just before the U.S., Iran and five world powers announced they had reached an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, Kerry had a conversation about the prisoners with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and President Hassan Rouhani’s brother, Hossein Fereydoun, in Vienna.
Bahram Mechanich and Tooraj Faridi, both of Houston, and Khosrow Afghahi, of Los Angeles, were released, along with four other Iranians held in other parts of the U.S., Mechanich’s attorney Joel Androphy said.
“We’re all really anxious to see photos”, the employee said. The U.S. State Department called the charges “absurd”.
Saboonchi had been convicted of unlawfully exporting goods to Iran in violation of worldwide sanctions and was serving a 2-year sentence.
“The nuclear negotiations which succeeded by the guidance of the Supreme Leader and support of our nation, were truly a golden page in Iran’s history”, he said.
Iran’s Gulf Arab adversaries were silent on news of the nuclear deal’s implementation, in what is perhaps a sign of unease at the rapprochement.
“Those who wished to depart Iran have left”, said one official. “The U.S. has never been afraid to pursue diplomacy with our adversaries”, he said, later adding that the U.S. government still has many areas of disagreement with Iran.
Kerry said the Americans had been released from Iranian custody.
As of Saturday morning, Naghmeh Abedini said she didn’t have a time line of when her husband would be back in the U.S.
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano will travel to Tehran on Sunday to meet Rouhani and the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, the IAEA said on Saturday.
Gabriel plans to chair a meeting of a German-Iranian economic commission in Tehran in May.
Last week, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said the USA had contacted Iran for a deal to swap Rezaian for unspecified Iranian detainees, but US officials declined to comment, saying any talk could jeopardize efforts to bring the Americans home.
American officials didn’t want the citizens used as leverage in the nuclear talks and didn’t want to lose their possible release if the talks failed to produce an agreement.
In addition, the official said Iran had committed to continue cooperating with the United States to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, an American who disappeared in Iran in 2007 while working for the CIA on an unapproved intelligence mission.
The family of one of the U.S prisoners received unofficial word from Iran that their relative was being released Saturday, according to a person close to that family who spoke on condition the family not be identified.
The families of Marine veteran Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini also confirmed to CNN that their loved ones had left Iran. The Post, for which he covered Iran, and the USA government have denied the accusations, as has Rezaian. At the same time, the United States will issue guidance to banks and businesses to explain what commerce will be allowed. And I know his kids, especially, they just miss their dad like insane.
This list included Matin Sadeghi, a 55-year-old Iranian man whom the Justice Department had charged with conspiring with others to transfer “at least $24 million of microelectronics and other components” to an Iranian company that would distribute the equipment to groups like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp and the Iran Centrifuge Technology Co.
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This story has been corrected with the proper spellings of Khosravi-Roodsari and Trevithick.
