There Is A Signal That Iran Is Ready To Swap Prisoners With The United States, The 2015 Nuclear Deal Will Recover?

Illustration of Iran's Arak nuclear reactor. (Wikimedia Commons/Nanking2012)

JAKARTA - Talks about restoring a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program and easing sanctions are nearing completion, a Russian envoy said on Tuesday, and sources close to the negotiations said a prisoner swap between Iran and the United States was expected soon.

"It seems that negotiations on the restoration of the #JCPOA will cross the finish line," Mikhail Ulyanov said on Twitter, using the full name of the 2015 deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Reuters reported last week that a US-Iran deal was taking shape in Vienna, Austria after months of talks between Tehran and major powers to revive the nuclear deal pact abandoned in 2018 by then-US President Donald Trump, followed by re-implementation. extensive sanctions against Iran.

A draft text of the agreement only vaguely touched on other issues, diplomats said, adding that it meant the disbursement of billions of dollars in Iranian funds in South Korean banks, and the release of Western prisoners held in Iran.

On Saturday last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said the Islamic Republic was ready for an immediate prisoner swap with the United States.

"Iran has always and repeatedly expressed its readiness to swap prisoners. A few months ago we were ready to do it, but America ruined the deal," a senior Iranian official in Tehran told Reuters, without elaborating.

"Now I believe some of them will be released, maybe five or six of them. But the talk about prisoners is not related to the nuclear deal, it is related to it. This is a humanitarian act by Iran."

Separately, US negotiator Robert Malley has suggested securing the nuclear pact is impossible unless Tehran releases four US citizens, including Iranian-American father and son Baquer and Siamak Namazi, whom Washington says are held hostage by Iran.

"Six years ago the Iranian government arrested Baquer Namazi and they still refuse to let him leave the country," Malley tweeted Tuesday.

"The Iranian government can and should release Namazi, Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz, and other US and foreign nationals who were unjustly detained."

Iran, which does not recognize dual citizenship, denies taking prisoners to gain diplomatic clout. However, in recent years, elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on espionage and security-related charges.

Britain has been seeking the release of British-Iranian Anousheh Ashouri, who is jailed on espionage charges, as well as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager at the Thomson Reuters Foundation who was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the clerical body.

Tehran has sought the release of more than a dozen Iranian nationals in the United States, including seven Iranian-American dual nationals, two Iranians with permanent US residency and four Iranian nationals without legal status in the United States. Most were jailed for violating US sanctions on Iran.

In the latest comments on the final phase of 10 months of nuclear negotiations, the coordinator of the talks, Enrique Mora tweeted, 'major issues need fixing' but the end is near.

Several Iranian officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said several minor technical issues were being discussed in Vienna, with a deal expected before the end of the week, though adding "nothing is agreed" until everything is agreed".