Five Americans imprisoned in Iran were allowed to leave the country on Monday, President Biden said, after two years of high-stakes negotiations in which the United States agreed to unfreeze $6 billion in oil revenue. of Iran and dismiss federal charges against five Iranians. accused of violating US sanctions.
The announcement that the Americans had boarded a plane from Tehran just before 9 a.m. Eastern time came as Mr. Biden and Ebrahim Raisi, the president of Iran, will attend the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting of world leaders in New York on Tuesday.
The five Americans – some of whom have been held for years in Evin Prison, one of Iran’s most notorious detention centers – flew to Doha, the capital of Qatar, for a Cold War-style exchange between two of the five Iranians. Three others refused to return to Iran, according to US officials.
In a statement, Mr. Biden said that “five innocent Americans imprisoned in Iran can finally come home.” He added that they “will soon be reunited with their loved ones – after years of suffering, uncertainty and suffering.”
White House officials said the president made an “emotional call” to American families.
The prisoner’s release was a critical breakthrough in a year-long standoff with Americans imprisoned in Iran. But the terms of the deal have drawn sharp criticism from Republicans who say the release of billions in oil revenue would amount to paying a ransom and lead to the taking of more hostages.
The arrangement also comes as part of a larger effort by the Biden administration to ease tensions with Iran, which have risen in the years since President Donald J. Trump abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal that placed limits on the program. nuclear in Tehran. But administration officials denied that the deal represented a major shift in the long-standing adversarial relationship between the United States and Iran.
Top aides to Mr. Biden say financial sanctions and strict monitoring will prevent Iran from spending money on anything other than food, medicine and other humanitarian goods. They acknowledge, however, that the deal could free up money Iran has already spent on those things for other purposes.
“Joe Biden’s disgraceful appeasement not only makes Iran stronger, it makes America less safe,” Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Biden administration officials say the Iran deal is the only way to secure the release of the five Americans, who the United States says are being wrongfully detained by the Iranians in deplorable conditions.
Siamak Namazi, one of the freed Americans, said in a statement that he had been dreaming of freedom for almost eight years as he experienced “torture” during his 2,898 days in prison.
“My heartfelt thanks go to President Biden and his administration, who had to make some tough decisions to save us,” he said.
The Americans – Mr. Namazi, Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz, as well as two others who have not been named at the request of their families – were jailed on unfounded charges of espionage. They spent the last few weeks in Iran under house arrest after Tehran agreed to release them from prison while the $6 billion transfer, a complex process, was completed.
American officials said that the mother of Mr. Namazi and the wife of Mr. Tahbaz was also on the plane from Iran. Both women are Americans and are barred from leaving the country.
The Americans were given a brief medical check-up in Doha before they boarded a US government plane bound for Washington, officials said.
At the same time as the prisoner exchange, the United States announced to Iran that it had completed the transfer of about $6 billion in Iranian oil revenues from South Korea to a Qatari bank account.
“This action was taken to meet a humanitarian need,” Mr. Raisi told reporters in New York on Monday. He added, “These are funds that belong to the people of Iran.”
Mick Mulroy, a senior Pentagon official in the Trump administration, said on Monday that the release of the funds “is likely to give countries that hold Americans as political hostages more reasons to do so.”
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned Americans on Monday against traveling to Iran and other countries where the risk of wrongful imprisonment is high.
“While this group of US citizens has been released, there is no way to guarantee the same outcome for other Americans who decide to travel to Iran despite the US government’s longstanding warnings against doing so, ” he said.
The release came two days after the first anniversary of the uprising in Iran that erupted after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the country’s morality custody. Hundreds were killed in the ensuing government crackdown, including at least 44 minors, and nearly 20,000 Iranians were arrested, the United Nations calculated. In the past few weeks, the government has arrested many people to prevent a new round of protests.
“International attention has now shifted away from the country’s continuing appalling human rights situation,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based advocacy group. “To coincide with the anniversary of the uprising in Iran was seen as a slap in the face of the Iranian people inside the country and angered many.”
But officials at Iran’s mission to the United Nations rejected the criticism, saying the timing of the release of American prisoners was conditional on $6 billion reaching a bank account in Doha and that Iran was out of control. the process.
Few of the Iranians involved in the deal have been jailed in the United States, although they all face federal charges. Those charges will be dropped under the terms of the deal.
Many of them are permanent residents of the United States. American officials said two of the Iranian detainees decided to return to Iran on Monday. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, said two will remain in the United States and one will return to a third country where he has family.
The Iranians were identified as Kaveh Afrasiabi, 65, who was charged with being an unregistered lobbyist; Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, 48, a dual Iranian Canadian citizen accused of exporting laboratory equipment for Iran’s nuclear program; Mehrdad Ansari, who is serving a five-year prison sentence for taking military equipment; Kambiz Attar Kashani, 45, a dual Iranian American businessman who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to illegally export technologies; and Amin Hasanzadeh, who is accused of stealing sensitive technical plans.
Mr. Hasanzadeh said he would return to Iran.
Negotiations on the release of Americans from Iran were accelerated in the spring, when Brett H. McGurk, the White House’s Middle East and North Africa coordinator, met with Omani officials in early May.
In August, after Iran released the Americans from house arrest, US officials said they would not celebrate until the Americans were out of Iran and on friendly soil.
The White House also announced Monday new sanctions on Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and its former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for wrongfully detaining Americans who violated the Levinson Act, named Bob Levinson, a former FBI agent believed to be held in Iran. for years before his death.
The Biden administration has made several efforts over the past three years to secure the release of Americans from other countries.
In March, the United States secured the release of Paul Rusesabagina, a human rights activist imprisoned in Rwanda. In December, Russia agreed to release Brittney Griner, an American basketball star, in exchange for Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.”
But some Americans remain in detention. In March, Russia accused Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of spying and detained him. Mr. Biden said his administration was working to secure Mr. Gershkovich’s release.
In his statement on Monday, the president said that many people are being held unjustly in Russia, Venezuela, Syria and elsewhere around the world.
“We remain unrelenting in our efforts to keep faith with them and their families,” he said, “and we will not stop working until we bring home every American held hostage or wronged. trapped.”
Julian Barnes contributed reporting from Washington.
