Iran: 5 US prisoners released and 6 billion USD collected from Korea
Five Americans imprisoned in Iran were officially let out of Tehran on Monday as the United States released about $6 billion in Iranian oil funds held for five years in South Korea.
The prisoner exchange deal also included the release of five Iranian prisoners held by Americans, two of whom plan to remain in the United States.
As of late Monday morning ET, the five American prisoners were on a plane headed from Tehran to Doha, Qatar, according to the White House.
One of the prisoners held in Iran was a dual-citizen oil executive detained in 2015 for “collaboration with a hostile government.”
The deal between Washington and Tehran, concluded in August, included giving Tehran access to nearly $6 billion in frozen oil revenues as long as the funds were used for humanitarian purposes.
Tehran expects the funds to be made available immediately on Monday, with Washington signing a full waiver of US sanctions that would allow international banks to transfer the funds to Iran from an account in South Korea.
Republicans criticized the plan, with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul saying: “Americans held by Iran are innocent hostages who must be released immediately and unconditionally. However, I remain deeply concerned that the administration's decision to waive sanctions to facilitate the transfer of $6 billion in funds to Iran, the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, creates a direct incentive for America's adversaries to conduct future hostage taking."
The White House stressed that Iran will not be given carte blanche to use the nearly $6 billion as it sees fit, and that the deal includes strict restrictions on the humanitarian use of these financial resources.
The deal also follows warnings issued last week by European countries that Iran is stockpiling highly enriched uranium beyond that used for civilian purposes. ,
Prisoner exchanges with Iran have also taken place in the past, including under the Obama and Trump administrations.Iran. However, the exchange improves the chances of an overall agreement between
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The article Iran: 5 US prisoners released and 6 billion USD collected from Korea comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/iran-liberati-i-5-prigionieri-usa-e-incassati-i-6-miliardi-di-usd-dalla-corea/ on Tue, 19 Sep 2023 10:00:40 +0000.