After more than two years of tortuous, halting talks, the Biden administration may finally be making some progress in its efforts to de-escalate tensions with Iran, secure the freedom of US nationals imprisoned in the Islamic republic and potentially put a lid on a long-running nuclear crisis.
Last week, Iran transferred four Iranian-US citizens, including businessmen Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz, from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison to house arrest as the first phase of a prisoner swap. Under the agreement, the detainees, plus another dual national also under house arrest, will eventually be free to leave the Islamic republic. Washington, meanwhile, will allow Tehran to access $6bn of its frozen oil funds held in South Korea and release five Iranian prisoners.
The deal smacks of hostage diplomacy and will justifiably cause concerns that it will encourage the regime to keep cynically using human pawns as a tactic in its decades-long hostility with the west. But the release of the dual nationals is a welcome step — Namazi had languished in Evin for eight years; Shargi and Tahbaz for five years, all on spying charges.