Iran-US prisoner swap likely set in motion as $6 billion of once-frozen Iranian assets reaches Qatar - WTOP News

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

54% : "Five imprisoned citizens who were in Iran will be given to the U.S. side reciprocally, based on their will.
54% : Four American captives, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, flew home from Iran at the time, and several Iranians in the U.S. won their freedom.
51% : However, a Qatar Airways Airbus A320 landed on Monday morning at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, where previous prisoner releases have taken place, according to flight-tracking data analyzed by the AP.
49% : That money was then sent to Qatar, an interlocutor between Tehran and Washington in the negotiations.
44% : However, the swap won't mean that tensions have been lowered between the U.S. and Iran, which now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.
44% : Their most recent major exchange happened in 2016, when Iran came to a deal with world powers to restrict its nuclear program in return for an easing of sanctions.
42% : Iranian government officials have largely concurred with that explanation, though some hard-liners have insisted, without providing evidence, that there would be no restrictions on how Tehran spends the money.
42% : That same day, President Barack Obama's administration airlifted $400 million in cash to Tehran.
40% : The announcement by Kanaani comes weeks after Iran said that five Iranian-Americans are now under house arrest as part of a confidence-building move while Seoul allowed the frozen assets, held in South Korean won, to be converted into euros.
40% : While the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has warned that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to produce "several" bombs, months more would likely be needed to build a weapon and potentially miniaturize it to put it on a missile -- if Iran decided to pursue one.
39% : But the advances in its program have led to fears of a wider regional conflagration as Israel, itself a nuclear power, has said it would not allow Tehran to develop the bomb.
36% : From the following year on, a series of attacks and ship seizures attributed to Iran have raised tensions.
35% : Iran and the U.S. have a history of prisoner swaps dating back to the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover and hostage crisis following the Islamic Revolution.
35% : The U.S. intelligence community has maintained its assessment that Iran is not pursuing an atomic bomb.
31% : The cash represents money South Korea owed Iran -- but had not yet paid -- for oil purchased before the Trump administration imposed sanctions on such transactions in 2019.
30% : The five prisoners Iran has said it seeks are mostly held over allegedly trying to export material to Iran.
29% : Iran has taken steps in recent months to settle some issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
28% : Iran has received international criticism over its targeting of people with dual citizenship.
21% : The deal has also already opened President Joe Biden to fresh criticism from Republicans and others who say that the administration is helping boost the Iranian economy at a time when Iran poses a growing threat to U.S. troops and Mideast allies.
13% : The West accuses Iran of using foreign prisoners as bargaining chips, an allegation Tehran rejects.
6% : Iran also supplies Russia with the bomb-carrying drones Moscow uses to target sites in Ukraine in its war on Kyiv, which remains another major dispute between Tehran and Washington.Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

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