Iran Releases Four Americans From Evin Prison

WASHINGTON—Iran has freed five Americans from a notorious Tehran prison with the understanding that five of its own prisoners and billions of dollars in frozen revenue from energy sales would be released in return, U.S. and Iranian officials said.

On Thursday, Tehran released four Americans into house arrest with the intention of allowing them to travel to the U.S. in the coming weeks. A fifth American was already under house arrest and is set to leave Iran with the other four.

“We will not rest until they are all back home in the United States,” the White House National Security Council said in a statement. The development followed months of intense, if quiet, diplomacy, brokered by the Swiss embassy in Tehran and two Gulf Arab states, officials said.

A spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations said the two countries had agreed to “reciprocally release and pardon five prisoners.”

“The transfer of these prisoners to out of prison marks a significant initial step in the implementation of this agreement,” the spokesman said in a statement.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency said more than $10 billion would be released from accounts in South Korea and Iraq, and that under the agreement, the Americans wouldn’t be permitted to leave Iran until the funds become available in Iranian accounts in Qatar. A U.S. official dismissed Iran’s claim, saying that only the $6 billion in funds held in South Korea was under discussion. The official added that in exchange for having these Americans move to house arrest, no Iranian prisoners in the U.S. have been released.

“Iran will not be receiving any sanctions relief, and in any instance where we would engage in such efforts to bring Americans home from Iran, Iran’s own funds would be used and transferred to restricted accounts such that the monies can only be used for humanitarian purposes…permitted under our sanctions,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Thursday. “We will continue to enforce all of our sanctions. We will continue to push back on Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region and beyond,” he added.

Iranian officials have repeatedly tied the possible release of prisoners to access to billions of dollars held in Iraq for deliveries of gas and oil and what Iran says is $7 billion in funds held in South Korea after the Trump administration tightened sanctions on the country’s oil exports.

Those discussions to release the funds are ongoing, the person familiar with the negotiations said, but the outcome remains undecided. The U.S. Treasury Department is exploring ways to move those funds from the restricted account in Seoul, where they can’t be accessed, to a third country where they can be accessed for humanitarian purposes and other trade permitted under U.S. sanctions.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence

“Iran will now use this money to produce drones for Russia and fund terrorism against us and Israel,” said Pence, who was vice president while at least three of the five were jailed. “China and Russia, who are also holding Americans hostages, now know the price has just gone up.”

On Thursday, the family of one of the hostages, Siamak Namazi, received direct visual confirmation that Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz had been freed from Evin prison, the family’s attorney, Jared Genser, said. Those three men and a fourth unnamed American had been brought to the prison office and informed they would be released, he said. The families of the four American hostages had previously been informed by the Biden administration Wednesday afternoon that it was expected, he said.

Switzerland, which has represented U.S. diplomatic interests in Iran since Washington and Tehran cut ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has been involved in the talks. The Swiss ambassador to Tehran will have full access to Americans under house arrest, according to the person familiar with negotiations. Qatar and Oman have also assisted in facilitating these negotiations, this person said.

Namazi was arrested in October 2015 on a business trip to Iran on charges of cooperating with a hostile government. Tahbaz, an environmentalist, was jailed in 2018 and has served five years of a 10-year sentence after being convicted of spying. Shargi, a businessman, was arrested in 2018 and sentenced without a trial in 2020 to 10 years in prison for espionage. All three are dual U.S. and Iranian nationals. Tahbaz also holds British nationality.

The two other hostages being released, including one woman, have asked that their identities remain private, the person familiar with the negotiations said.

The latest attempt at diplomacy represents a balancing act for the Biden administration and is focused on cooling tensions with Tehran that have soared this year. Iran has provided drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine, pushed ahead with uranium enrichment and seized oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.

Officials said that the efforts to free the Americans ran in parallel with continuing talks on reviving an international nuclear pact that imposed limits on Iran’s nuclear programs in exchange for the removal of economic sanctions. The U.S. withdrew from the pact under former President

The Biden administration is eager to avoid catapulting negotiations with Iran to the top of the political agenda as the presidential election approaches. However, the administration has also noted the potential for talks to fail, given Iran’s uranium-enrichment activities and what it calls destabilizing activity across the region.

These talks also come against a tense regional environment, where the U.S. is sending additional forces to the Middle East to stop and deter attacks against international commercial tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. has also repeatedly called out and penalized Iran for its assistance to Russia in its war in Ukraine.

—Aresu Eqbali contributed to this article.

Write to Vivian Salama at [email protected]