Iran Nuclear Talks’ Fate Has Entwined With Iran-US Prisoner Swap

By: Mohammad Javad Mousavizadeh?????????????

While Iran and the U.S officials have emphasized that swap prisoners and Iran nuclear negotiations are two separate issues, there is no doubt that the two cases have been linked.?

The exchange of prisoners by governments for developing international relations brings other bilateral issues to engagement. Of course, all things are equal when two countries swap foreign prisoners, but the subject for Iran and the U.S, two nemeses, is slightly different. Since years ago, some innocent persons have caught up in the decades of tension between Washington and Tehran.

Some analysts who have followed the history of Iran-US relations believe that since Iran nuclear talks commenced, the case of prisoner swap has always been on the agenda. Before any meeting on the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, the two sides insisted on holding a separate session on the prisoner swap issue.

During Obama’s administration, it was no coincidence that the release of the five imprisoned Americans to exchange for seven Iranians came to fruition when Iran’s nuclear concessions were certified on the same day.

In Trump’s era, the successful prisoner exchange plan when the U.S withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as JCPOA, exposed that any agreement about other issues is reachable in the worst situation over relations between two countries. Although the negotiations between the two sides over Iran’s nuclear program stalled in Trump's era, the acceptance of the exchange of prisoners by Trump sent a message to Iranian officials that any deal on other issues is reachable. In December 2018, the United Stated released Massoud Soleimani, an Iranian charged with violating U.S sanctions in exchange for American Xiyue Wang. Also, the two sides swapped American Navy veteran Michael White in exchange for Majid Taheri, the Iranian-American physician.

“I think it was great to show that we can do something,” said Trump after the swap of prisoners in 2018.

For President Biden, the debate about a final decision over dealing with Iran began when he took office. The reviving of the 2015 nuclear deal is a top goal for Biden’s administration, but he knows that the exchange of prisoners complements Iran’s nuclear talking. As the nuclear negotiations have faced an impasse, the prisoner exchange program has dropped. Based on reports, Biden will not agree to a partial deal over prisoner swap with Iran. Instead, he has followed a comprehensive agreement with Iran to revive the Iran nuclear deal and release all American prisoners under detention in Iran.

“We are saying all of them have to come home. We don’t want to do a partial deal. We don’t want to leave anyone behind.” President Joe Biden’s envoy to Iran said in July 2021.

While Iranian officials had declared before that Iran is ready for a full prisoner exchange with the United States, the Nour News Agency recently reported that Iran is dropping plans for prisoner swaps with the U.S.

“The Biden government no longer has any incentive on the part of Iran to continue this process, and therefore Iran will remove the issue of exchange in its form from its agenda altogether,” Nour news, a semi-official website which is close to Iran’s National Security Council, reported from an anonymous source.”

The two sides accuse each other of bringing bogus charges against prisoners in a bid to extract concessions. Some analysts believe that charges such as violating the U.S sanctions against Iran by U.S courts and collusion with the enemy state by Iran’s judiciary system are sham charges with political goals. There is no doubt that the Iran nuclear talking and prisoner exchange program has linked together severely in recent years. Anytime the two sides rapprochement to each other and negotiations were on the cusp of reaching a deal, the charges of prisoners dropped and inmates released swiftly.

While officials of Iran and the U.S insisted that only the Judiciary system of their country can determine over prisoner’s fate, an Iranian-American journalist Jason Rezaeeian and Iranian researcher Massoud Soleimani were released at the same time of the mutual political deal in 2015, and their all charges dropped.

Even Soleimani’s lawyer, Lenny Franco, does not know why the charges were dropped. “If you can figure it out, let me know,” he said to New Yorker in 2019 when the U.S Attorney’s office in Atlanta had said the prisoner exchange was in the works, and the judge agreed to dismiss Soleimani’s charges.

At that time, some experts speculated that the swap was aimed at bolstering overall support for the Iran nuclear deal 2015. However, John Kerry, the former secretary of state, told reporters in Vienna that the prisoner swap was "accelerated" by the nuclear agreement.?

Base on speculations, the two sides, during talks in Vienna, aimed at salvaging the original Iran nuclear deal 2015, negotiated indirectly about the prisoner swap program. Some Western officials accuse Iran of using hostage diplomacy as leverage to exert pressure in negotiations to score points, including unlocking billions in frozen assets and lifting the sanctions. However, the Iranian officials have denied the accusation.

As most charges of Iranian prisoners in the U.S are related to violating the U.S sanctions, Iranians believe that the freedom of Iran’s prisoners must be the outcome of the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna that aims to lift crippling sanctions against Iran with its verifiable pledges.?

“Once these sanctions have been lifted, why keep those folks in American prisons?” former Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said after the deal in 2015.

Four Iranian American dual nationals including Siamak Namazi, Baquar Nzmazi, Morad Tahbaz and Emad Sharghi are prisoned in Iran while American officials say their charges are phony. Also, at least 9 Iranians include Behrooz Behroozian, Mehdi Hashemi, Reza Olangian, Manssor Arbabsiar, Hassan Ali Moshir-Fatemi, Sadr Emad-Vaez, Pouran Aazad, Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi and Amin Hasanzadeh are under detention now in America.

“We had been engaged in indirect talks on the detainees in the context of the Vienna process, and the delay in restarting that process is not helping,” said Ned Price, spokesman for the United States Department of State. Still, he added, “While it would be more effective to make progress if we were meeting in Vienna, we are also prepared to continue with talks on detainees during this period.”?

Some observers believe that Iran’s hardliners as opponents of rapprochement with the West threatened diplomacy between the two sides by arresting dual national’s persons to undermine delicate negotiations between two sides during Rouhani’s administration.

When Iranian former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif offered publicly in 2019 to negotiate a prisoner exchange with the U.S and said that he is authorized to conduct such talks, the spokesperson of Iran’s judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Esmaili, who services now in Raisi’s cabinet, denied any coordination about prisoner swap with the judiciary system and rebuked Zarif’s remarks indirectly.

President Raisi, the former chief of Iran’s judiciary, could use his influence on the judiciary system to reduce tensions with the West by releasing Western prisoners. Some of them were prisoned and sentenced in his mastery era over the judiciary. As a result, it seems the plan of prisoner exchange could move forward on the smooth road under Raisi’s administration.

While human rights groups have accused Iran of using foreign national prisoners as bargaining chips in political negotiations, Raisi, who is sanctioned over human rights violations by the U.S and European Union, makes no secret of his concerns that the issue of dual national inmates is a big challenge for his administration.

Some analysts believe that onerous American sanctions have hobbled Iran's economy, and realizing the election promises of Raisi needs to salvage the nuclear deal and a slight rapprochement with the West by the new conservative administration in Iran.

It seems that the nuclear talks’ fate to revive the original nuclear deal and the exchange prisoners have entwined with each other and have been affected directly together. Thus, if swap prisoners as a complement of nuclear negotiations come to fruition, both sides have much chance to restore Iran’s atomic deal.