{"id":147475,"date":"2023-09-18T14:17:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T18:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=147475"},"modified":"2023-09-18T14:17:10","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T18:17:10","slug":"american-and-iranian-prisoner-swap-releases-6-billion-for-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=147475","title":{"rendered":"American and Iranian prisoner swap releases $6 billion for Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/iran.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-123818 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/iran-300x166.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"166\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/iran-300x166.png 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/iran-500x277.png 500w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/iran.png 528w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Five U.S. citizens were released from Iran and arrived in Doha. Five Iranians have been freed from U.S. custody and similarly travelled to release points. Included in this deal is the release of $6 billion of Iranian funds to be transferred from South Korea to Qatar. Republican Michael McCaul said that this deal would lead to more American detentions in Iran.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>From Reuters:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We will continue to impose costs on Iran for their provocative actions in the region,&#8221; he said in the statement, in which he thanked the governments of Qatar, Oman, Switzerland and South Korea for their assistance in securing the releases.<\/p>\n<p>Qatar mediated indirect U.S.-Iran talks on the prisoners while Switzerland, which represents U.S. interests in Tehran because the United States and Iran do not diplomatic relations, helped with the transfer of funds from South Korea to Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>A plane sent Qatar flew the five U.S. citizens and two of their relatives out of Tehran after both sides got confirmation the $6 billion was transferred from South Korea to Qatari accounts, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>A prominent Republican, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, said the transfer of the $6 billion would likely lead to more detentions of U.S. citizens by Iran.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am very concerned that this $6 billion hostage deal incentivises future hostage-taking,&#8221; McCaul said in an emailed statement. &#8220;There is no question this deal will free up funds for Iran&#8217;s malign activities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Biden aides argue the money belongs to Iran and is being transferred from restricted South Korean accounts to restricted Qatari accounts, where it can only be spent on food, medicine and other humanitarian items with U.S. oversight.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, two of the five Iranians landed in Qatar, a U.S. official said. Three have opted not to return to Iran.<\/p>\n<p>The five Iranian Americans &#8211; one of whom had been held for about eight years on charges the United States had rejected as baseless &#8211; were due to board a U.S. government aircraft in Doha and then fly home to the United States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Reuters has additional <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/south-korea-working-unfreeze-tehrans-funds-us-iran-detainee-deal-2023-09-18\/\">information<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five U.S. citizens were released from Iran and arrived in Doha. Five Iranians have been freed &hellip; <a title=\"American and Iranian prisoner swap releases $6 billion for Iran\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=147475\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">American and Iranian prisoner swap releases $6 billion for Iran<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[387,308,613],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-affairs","category-iran","category-joe-biden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}