Frankfurter Allgemeine Newspaper—Germany
F.A.Z., 11.02.2022, Zeitgeschehen (Politik), Seite 8
In Vienna, the USA and Iran are also negotiating a prisoner exchange
By Rainer Hermann
In addition to the negotiations on the revival of the nuclear agreement with Iran, separate talks on the release of four American citizens from Iranian custody are currently taking place in Vienna. In both cases, the US delegation is not in direct contact with the Iranian negotiators. Recently, however, the chief negotiator for the American delegation in Vienna, Robert Malley, confirmed to the Reuters news agency that indirect talks were being held about the release of four Americans. Malley reiterated the American position that the case of the four detainees was independent of the nuclear dossier. However, he stressed that while the four remained innocent in detention, it was very difficult for Washington to imagine returning to the accord.
In the past few days, all negotiators have returned to Vienna for a potentially decisive round. The talks about a possible restoration of the nuclear agreement with Iran are therefore approaching a decisive phase. They seemed to be drawing to a close, Barbara Slavin, one of America's leading experts on Iran, told the F.A.Z. So she suspects the hostage talks are at a similar stage, said the director of the Atlantic Council's Future of Iran Initiative. It is also conceivable that a number of Iranian prisoners in the United States would be released in return. However, the Voice of America radio station reported on February 4 that Iran wanted money for the release of American prisoners and was not seeking the release of Iranian prisoners.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have repeatedly arrested foreigners with dual citizenship in recent years. They were charged with spying or otherwise posing a threat to Iran's security. Among the political prisoners are dual nationals from numerous European countries, including four German citizens, such as the Cologne architect and human rights activist Nahid Taghavi. Iran never revokes its citizens from Iranian citizenship. Human rights groups accuse Iran of using foreign nationals as leverage in negotiations. However, Iran denies that they are being held for political reasons.
Two of the US hostages to be released are 85-year-old Baqer Namazi and his 50-year-old son Siamak Namazi, a businessman living in Dubai. Both were convicted of "collaborating with a hostile government." The son is serving a ten-year sentence in solitary confinement at the notorious Evin Prison. The United Nations found he had not received a fair trial. The other two are 66-year-old environmental activist Murad Tahbaz, who was arrested for "military espionage" while working to protect endangered species in Iran, and 57-year-old businessman Emad Shargi, who worked for a technology company in Tehran.
The United States and Iran first agreed on a prisoner exchange in diplomatic negotiations in early 2016, after which five American citizens were able to return home. There was also a prisoner exchange at the end of 2019 during the tenure of President Donald Trump. On January 10, Great Britain and Iran reached an agreement in Vienna to release British-Iranian dual national Aras Amiri. Amiri had worked for the British Council in Tehran and had been sentenced to ten years in prison for espionage. The British government is apparently also in talks about the release of its national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
The case of Hossein Mousavian shows how easy it is to be accused of espionage. He represented the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1990 to 1997 as ambassador in Bonn, under President Mohammad Chatami he was spokesperson of the Iranian delegation to the first nuclear negotiations from 2003 to 2005. At the time, Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and signed the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Under Khatami's successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mousavian was accused of abusing his office for espionage on behalf of western states. Ahmadinejad called for the death penalty. Ultimately, Mousavian was sentenced to several years in prison, which he was able to escape by withdrawing in good time. Since then he has been teaching and researching at Princeton University in the United States.
Before that, during his time as ambassador, he played a key role in the release of several German hostages who, like him later, had been arrested and imprisoned for alleged espionage. In 1994 he succeeded in getting the Iranian revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei to pardon and release the German Helmut Szimkus, who had been sentenced to death. He also succeeded in releasing other German businessmen arrested in Iran.
Larger cases were settled thanks to diplomatic negotiations. From 1988 to 1992, for example, the Lebanese Hezbollah took numerous Western hostages. On behalf of Iran, Mousavian negotiated with Hezbollah and obtained the release of most of the western hostages, including two German citizens. In 1996, he and the German Minister of State Bernd Schmidbauer succeeded in the largest exchange of prisoners and dead soldiers between Israel and Hizbullah.
If the negotiations in Vienna now come to an agreement on a prisoner exchange, this would be nothing new for the Middle East.