The Biden administration on Thursday reportedly struck a deal with Iran to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian financial assets and release a “handful” of Iranian nationals jailed for violating U.S. sanctions in exchange for five Americans taken prisoner by Iran on highly dubious charges of espionage.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations on Thursday said, “Iran’s frozen funds in South Korea will be unblocked and transferred to Qatar,” apparently referring to the $6 billion sum. U.S. sources who spoke to the far-left New York Times publication and Reuters confirmed the financial aspects of the deal.
The Times‘ sources identified the five American prisoners as Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi, and Morad Tahbaz, plus two others the Biden administration did not immediately name. The two other prisoners are reportedly a “scientist” and a “businessman.” One of those two individuals was arrested by Iran in March, stalling the deal to release the others until Iran agreed to include the new detainee as well.
The best-known of the named three is Siamak Namazi, 51, arrested in October 2015 while he was visiting family in Tehran. Namazi was a supporter of the Iranian regime and advocate of closer U.S.-Iran relations who might have fallen victim to a power struggle between secular and theocratic factions within the government.
Siamak Namazi’s elderly father Baquer was also held captive by Iran and was released in October 2022, after seven years in prison, for health reasons. Both Namazis were convicted of “collaborating with a hostile power,” namely the United States, in a secret 2016 “trial.”
In July 2022, Namazi wrote a NYT op-ed from prison entitled “I’m An American, Why Have I Been Left to Rot as a Hostage of Iran?” He said he felt compelled to write the piece because “the Biden administration’s approach to rescuing Americans in distress in Iran has failed spectacularly so far.”
“The ugly reality is that Iran will free its captives only if offered sufficient incentives,” Namazi said, a prediction that would seem to have been proven accurate by the gigantic payoff Iran was ultimately given to secure his release.
