August 26, 2023
Critics have argued
that the US has given into Iranian blackmail by agreeing to a prisoner exchange
deal.
Earlier this month,
after more than two years of closed-door negotiations, the United States and
Iran agreed to a prisoner swap deal, which once implemented, will see Tehran
releasing five US-Iranian citizens in exchange for the release of several
Iranians jailed in the US, and access to billions of dollars in frozen funds.
But questions about
why the deal is only happening now, when some of the prisoners have been in
jail for years, continue to linger.
US Secretary of
State Antony Blinken has said that the deal is “not linked” to any other aspect
of Washington’s Iran policy, with the focus only on freeing US citizens and
residents wrongfully detained in Tehran. But Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
has said that an integral part of carrying out the deal now was access to $6bn
of its funds frozen in South Korea.
Prisoner swap
blackmail?
Some critics have
charged the US with giving into Iranian “blackmail” by agreeing to the deal.
US Republican
Senator Tom Cotton accused the country’s President Joe Biden of a “craven act
of appeasement” that would “embolden” Iranian leaders, in a statement earlier
in August.
Iran’s economy is
currently ailing. According to the World Bank, the country faces intensified
climate change challenges, including severe droughts, which could restrict
agricultural output.
The war in Ukraine
has also raised Iran’s import bill, putting a strain on government finances.
“It’s clear that
Iran is expecting the funds in South Korea to become accessible so that they
can benefit and revamp their economy, which is currently struggling. But this
money is also their own. It’s not that the US is giving them money,” Roxane
Farmanfarmaian, academic director and lecturer in international politics at the
University of Cambridge specialising on Iran, told Al Jazeera.
“I also think it’s a
bit disingenuous to say that in this prisoner swap deal, Iran is the only one
that’s blackmailing here. I’m not saying Iranian law is practised in an
appropriate way, but since the US withdrew from the 2018 JCPOA [Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action] nuclear deal and placed Iran under extraordinary
sanctions and froze all its funds when Tehran had been complying with the deal,
the entire US approach towards Iran has also involved a bit of blackmailing,”
she added.
Iranian human rights
lawyer and former head of public interest law at Oxford University Kaveh
Moussavi also thinks the US-Iranian deal has come about because the Biden
administration has a vested interest in making sure war does not break out in
yet another part of the world, and is apprehensive about Iran’s relations with
Russia.
“The West is working
flat out to supply the ammunition needed by Ukraine, while Russia has run out
and they’re begging Iran and North Korea to supply them with drones, shells and
mortars. The US is aware that Tehran is very heavily invested in the survival
of the Russian regime and is keen to change that narrative and also ensure
Tehran is at peace with its other neighbours in the Middle East,” he told Al
Jazeera.
Since Russia invaded
Ukraine last February, Moscow and Tehran have gotten closer.
But while Iran has
acknowledged supplying drones to Russia before the beginning of the Ukraine
conflict, it has rejected US accusations that it has sent hundreds of drones to
Russia since the beginning of the war.
Dissent towards the
deal
Tehran has said the
prisoner exchange deal will be implemented once the frozen assets arrive at a
bank account in Qatar’s central bank.
But not everybody in
the US is happy with the deal, particularly family members of a US permanent
resident who has not been included.
“My father Shahab
Dalili, a US permanent resident and citizen of Iran, continues to languish in
prison in Tehran. I have not been given any explanation regarding why he hasn’t
been released. The US government says it is because my father has not been designated
as ‘unlawfully detained’. It has been seven years and I need the American
government to act responsibly,” Darian Dalili, Shahab’s son, told Al Jazeera.
Shahab Dalili, now
60 years old, was arrested in April 2016 while on a visit to Tehran for his
father’s funeral. Iranian authorities charged him with “aiding and abetting a
hostile nation” which in his case was “aiding the US”, according to Darian
Dalili.
“Since then, my
father has been imprisoned at Tehran’s Evin prison, known for human rights
abuses. While he is no longer in solitary confinement, the living conditions in
prison are still bad. The beds that they have have been described to me, not by
him, but by others who have been there, as coffins. But my father remains
strong. He spends his time reading a lot, taking walks in the prison yard. He
hasn’t given up yet, giving us hope to continue fighting for his release,”
Dalili said.
Asked by journalists
why Shahab Dalili was left out of the prisoner exchange deal, Secretary Blinken
said he could not reveal details of individual cases, but said that the US was
“constantly reviewing” cases of unlawful detentions in Iran.
Mohammad Marandi, a
professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera that “the US and its
allies always claim everyone held in Iran is innocent, but it’s very difficult
to imagine the US being so innocent.”
“Even the US
government admits that the Iranians held in their prisons never harmed the US,”
he added, highlighting the Iranian prisoners held in the US, who are believed
to have been accused of violating sanctions on Iran.
How will the deal
change US-Iran relations?
Meanwhile, Secretary
Blinken has added that nothing about the deal changes the US’s overall approach
towards Iran.
“We continue to
pursue a strategy of deterrence, of pressure and diplomacy. We remain committed
to ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon. We continue to hold the
regime accountable for its human rights abuses, destabilising actions in the region,
funding of terrorism, provision of drones to Russia for its use in war against
Ukraine, among many other offences. We’ve been clear that Iran must
de-escalate, to create space for future diplomacy,” Blinken told journalists on
August 15.
Farmanfarmaian
agrees that at this stage, the deal is mainly for the US to get its citizens
out of prison and for Iran to get its money.
“It doesn’t have
huge implications for other aspects of US-Iran relations like the nuclear deal,
which has both economic and enrichment issues associated with it,” she said.
The US unilaterally
withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran in 2018, and imposed sanctions on
Iran.
Farmanfaraian did,
however, highlight that the fact that the US and Iran are now talking and
negotiating through this deal is significant.
“It means that the
direct lines of communication are open. So unlike the JCPOA renegotiations
which needed European delegates to also conduct the talks, these negotiations
appear much more direct. Obviously, countries like Qatar and Oman were
involved, but it does seem to be that there is a lot of closer negotiation in
the hallways,” she said.
However, Moussavi
thinks “it is inconceivable” that Iran and the US will be able to have a normal
relationship on the back of the prisoner swap deal.
“Such prisoner swaps
might normalise relationships for a little while but how many times has Iran
tried to restore diplomatic relations with countries like Britain in this
manner? Sanctions on Iran are in place for a reason,” Moussavi said. “I don’t
see this prisoner deal changing future relations to a great extent, with the
US.”
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