Five prisoners sought by the US in a swap with Iran flew out of Tehran on Monday, an official said.
Flight-tracking data analysed by the AP showed a Qatar Airways flight take off at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, which has been used for exchanges in the past. Iranian state media soon after said the flight had left Tehran.
The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the exchange was still in process. Earlier, officials said that the exchange would take place after nearly $6 billion in once-frozen Iranian assets reached Qatar, a key element of the planned swap.
Despite the deal, tensions are almost certain to remain high between the US and Iran, which are locked in various disputes, including over Tehran's nuclear programme. Iran says the programme is peaceful, but it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani was the first to acknowledge the swap would take place Monday. He said the cash sought for the exchange that had been held by South Korea was now in Qatar.
Kanaani made his comments during a news conference aired on state television, but the feed cut immediately after his remarks. “Fortunately Iran's frozen assets in South Korea were released and God willing today the assets will start to be fully controlled by the government and the nation,” Kanaani said.
“On the subject of the prisoner swap, it will happen today and five prisoners, citizens of the Islamic Republic, will be released from the prisons in the US,” he added. Five imprisoned citizens who were in Iran will be given to the US side. He said two of the Iranian prisoners will stay in the US.
The official said that both Iranian and US officials had been notified by Qatar that the money had been transferred to the Gulf Arab nation, which serves as a go-between for the US and Iran.
Mohammad Reza Farzin, Iran's Central Bank chief, later came on state television to acknowledge the receipt of over 5.5 billion euros--$5.9 billion--in accounts in Qatar. Months ago, Iran had anticipated getting as much as $7 billion.
Washington did not comment on the announcement. The planned exchange comes ahead of the convening of world leaders at the UN General Assembly this week in New York, where Iran's hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi will speak.
A Qatar Airways plane landed Monday morning at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, according to flight-tracking data analyzed by the AP. Qatar Airways uses Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport for its commercial flights, but previous prisoner releases have taken place at Mehrabad.
The announcement by Kanaani comes weeks after Iran said that five Iranian-Americans had been transferred from prison to house arrest as part of a confidence-building move. Meanwhile, Seoul allowed the frozen assets, held in South Korean won, to be converted into euros.
The planned swap has unfolded amid a major American military buildup in the Persian Gulf, with the possibility of US troops boarding and guarding commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of all oil shipments pass.
The deal has also already opened US 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 American troops and Middle East allies. That could have implications in his re-election campaign as well.
On the US side, Washington has said the planned swap includes Siamak Namazi, who was detained in 2015 and was later sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges; Emad Sharghi, a venture capitalist sentenced to 10 years; and Morad Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent who was arrested in 2018 and also received a 10-year sentence. All of their charges have been widely criticized by their families, activists and the US government.
US officials have so far declined to identify the fourth and fifth prisoners. The five prisoners Iran has said it seeks are mostly held over allegedly trying to export banned material to Iran, such as dual-use electronics that can be used by the military. The cash represents money South Korea owed Iran, but had not yet paid, for oil purchased before the US imposed sanctions on such transactions in 2019.
Iran and the U.S. have a history of prisoner swaps dating back to the 1979 US Embassy takeover and hostage crisis following the Islamic Revolution. Their most recent major exchange happened in 2016, when Iran came to a deal with world powers to restrict its nuclear programme in return for an easing of sanctions.
Four American captives, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, flew home from Iran at the time, and several Iranians in the US won their freedom. That same day, then-President Barack Obama's administration airlifted $400 million in cash to Tehran.
