Biden Poised To Send Iran $6 Billion To Initiate Prisoner Exchange

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

60% : Later that day U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken called the move the first step of a process that would lead to their return home.
57% : "Iran initially wanted direct access to the funds but in the end agreed to having access via Qatar," said a senior diplomat.
55% : Qatari minister of state at the Foreign Ministry Mohammed Al-Khulaifi was the go-between mediator.
53% : "Iran will purchase food and medicine and Qatar will pay directly.
53% : The talks were led by U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley -- now on unpaid leave because his security clearance is under review -- and by U.S. Deputy Special Envoy Abram Paley and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, said one Iranian official, two sources briefed on the negotiations, and the Western diplomat.
51% : Nasser Kanaani, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson, said when asked about this story in a televised news conference that Tehran would free the Americans on "humanitarian grounds".
50% : When $6 billion of unfrozen Iranian funds are wired to banks in Qatar as early as next week, it will trigger a carefully choreographed sequence that will see as many as five detained U.S. dual nationals leave Iran and a similar number of Iranian prisoners held in the U.S. fly home, according to eight Iranian and other sources familiar with the negotiations who spoke to Reuters.
50% : "Prisoners expected to transit QatarThe Iranian, diplomatic and regional sources said that once the money reaches Qatar from South Korea via Switzerland, Qatari officials will instruct Tehran and Washington to proceed with the releases under the terms of a document signed by both sides and Qatar in late July or early August.
50% : The central bank governors of Iran and Qatar met in Doha on June 14 to discuss the funds transfer, a second Iranian insider and the source briefed on the talks said.
46% : At the centre of the negotiations that forged this deal between the superpower which Iran brands the "Great Satan" and the Islamic Republic which Washington calls a state sponsor of terrorism is the tiny but hugely rich state of Qatar.
45% : Issues discussed included how to ensure Iran only spent the money on humanitarian goods and securing guarantees from Qatar on its monitoring of the process.
44% : Iran said on Monday it was optimistic the prisoner swap with Washington would happen "in the near future".
44% : We judge Iran by its actions, nothing else," the State Department spokesperson added.
43% : Doha will implement a financial arrangement under which it will pay banking fees and monitor how Iran spends the unfrozen cash to ensure no money is spent on items under U.S. sanctions, and the prisoners will transit Qatar when they are swapped, according to three of the sources.
43% : Washington consented to the movement of Iranian funds from South Korea to restricted accounts held by financial institutions in Qatar, but no money is going to Iran directly, the spokesperson added.
43% : The State Department spokesperson also said there had been no change in Washington's overall approach to Iran, "which continues to be focused on deterrence, pressure and diplomacy."Once the funds are transferred, they will be held in restricted accounts in Qatar, and the U.S. will have oversight as to how and when these funds are used, the State Department spokesperson added.
38% : "American prisoners will fly to Qatar from Tehran and Iranian prisoners will fly from the U.S. to Qatar, and then be transferred to Iran," the source briefed on the talks told Reuters.
37% : The Central Bank of Iran and the Qatar central bank declined to comment.
36% : The $6 billion in Iranian assets -- the proceeds of oil sales -- were frozen under sweeping U.S. oil and financial sanctions against Iran.
35% : As a first step, Iran on Aug. 10 released four U.S. citizens from Tehran's Evin prison into house arrest, where they joined a fifth, who was already under house arrest.
28% : Then president Trump in 2018 reimposed the sanctions when he pulled Washington out of a deal under which Iran had restricted its nuclear program.
25% : But Blinken told reporters on Aug 10 the deal does not mean that Iran would be getting any sanctions relief, explaining that Washington would continue to push back "resolutely against Iran's destabilizing activities in the region".
15% : Ties between the U.S. and Iran have been at boiling point since Donald Trump quit a nuclear deal with Iran as U.S. president in 2018.

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