Tehran says 5 Iranians held in US to be freed Monday

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

TEHRAN, Iran (AA) - Iran said five Iranian prisoners in the United States will be released on Monday as part of a prisoner exchange deal between the two countries.

Two of the prisoners will return to Tehran via the Qatari capital, Doha, judiciary vice-president Kazem Gharibabadi said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Gharibabadi, who is also the head of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, said his office remains “determined to uphold the rights of Iranians abroad, alongside the government and the judiciary.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said early Monday that the process of implementing the agreement between Tehran and Washington to exchange the prisoners and unblock Iranian funds in South Korea has “progressed step by step.”

He said Iran will have full possession of its assets frozen in Seoul on Monday, which will be transferred to one of the countries in the region, a reference to Qatar.

He said five Iranian prisoners in the US will also be released, of which two will return to Iran, one will be transferred to his family in a third country and two others will stay in the US.

Last week, Iran's mission to the United Nations announced the names of five Iranian prisoners to be freed by the US, shortly after the Joe Biden administration issued a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar.

The five men have been identified as Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, Mehrdad Ansari, Amin Hasanzadeh, Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, and Kambiz Attar Kashani.

Last month, Iran and the US reached an agreement mediated by Qatar to exchange prisoners and to unfreeze Iran’s assets in South Korea as well as Iraq.

Iran will also be releasing five American prisoners who were moved from north Tehran’s highly-fortified Evin Prison to house arrest last month.

Three of them include Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz, while the fourth and fifth prisoners have not been publicly identified.

The Iran-US prisoner exchange comes amid rising tensions over the 2015 nuclear deal and Iranian nuclear activities.

On Wednesday, the US and over 60 other countries expressed concern over what they called "Iran’s lack of cooperation on the NPT Safeguards Agreement of the UN nuclear agency."

In response, Iran accused the US and three European parties to the nuclear accord, the UK, France and Germany, of “misusing” the UN nuclear watchdog to achieve their “political objectives.”