2023-09-18 17:37:06
Is this the beginning of a thaw between two sworn enemies? Monday, September 18, Washington and Tehran concretized an agreement announced on August 10, at the end of more than a year of secret negotiations: an exchange of five prisoners on both sides took place in the afternoon in Doha, Qatar, the small emirate having acted as mediator between the two states which have not spoken directly to each other since the Islamic revolution of 1979.
The sequence followed a precise mechanism: while the Qatari plane landed in Tehran to bring back the former American detainees, Washington transferred $6 billion in Iranian funds to bank accounts in Qatar. Because if the United States firmly refutes any “ransom”the exchange was conditional on the release of these €5,573,492,000 previously frozen in… South Korea.
Seoul, which was one of the largest buyers of Iranian oil, obtained a waiver from the Trump administration in 2018 to continue acquiring it despite sanctions. These funds found themselves blocked three years later, thanks to new American restrictions.
Vilified by the Republican opposition, the White House assured that these billions were not a “blank check” in Tehran, their use being restricted to use “humanitarian”.
A “de-escalation” on several fronts
The latest case of the prolific “hostage diplomacy” practiced by the Islamic Republic, this agreement allows Ebrahim Raïssi to arrive in a position of strength at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, before which the Iranian president must speak out Tuesday September 19.
If this exchange does not officially change anything in the negotiations, which have been at a standstill since 2022, led by the Europeans to revive the agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue, it comes at a time when Tehran is emerging from diplomatic isolation. After the historic rapprochement with Saudi Arabia in March through China and Tehran’s promised membership in the Brics forum, senior Iranian diplomats are expected to meet their Gulf counterparts on the sidelines of the General Assembly of the UN to improve regional dynamics.
“The domestic crisis has forced Iran to de-escalate on several fronts. The Iranians have built a stronger relationship with Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, and reached this agreement with the United States, notes Sanam Vakil, specialist in Iran and the Middle East at the Chatham House think tank. But beyond that, information suggests that an agreement has been reached between Tehran and Washington, where Iran will backtrack on its enrichment, in exchange for unofficial permission to increase its oil exports. » A sign that the United States, however, does not want to give the impression of giving in too much: they announced, a few minutes after the exchange, sanctions against the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
#Tehran #secures #prisoner #exchange #Washington