President Biden secured a deal with Iran that involved transferring jailed Americans to house arrest in exchange for jailed Iranians, but it may be a long process before the five American hostages can safely return home, NSC coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby said Thursday.
"When [will] they come home? We don’t know. They are out of prison, which is a good thing because Evin Prison is pretty intolerable. But they are not out of Iran yet, so we are really at the beginning of a set of negotiations to get them home," Kirby said on "The Story."
Four jailed Americans in Iran were moved to house arrest on Thursday, joining one other U.S. citizen who was already been placed under house arrest in the country earlier this year. The transfer marks the first step in a tentative prisoner swap agreement between Iran and the U.S. If the deal is upheld and the Americans are allowed to return to the U.S., the Biden administration is said to have agreed to release roughly $6 billion in Iranian government assets blocked under U.S. sanctions and a handful of Iranian nationals serving prison sentences for violating sanctions on Iran.
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Kirby said U.S. officials have been able to confirm through Swiss sources that the prisoners were in fact moved out of a prison in Tehran and were placed under house arrest in a hotel, indicating Iran's initial compliance with the prospective deal. But, he cautioned, there are many moving parts that need to go right before these Americans are safely brought home to the United States.
"They are out of prison. In fact, one of the five already was under house arrest, but we have four moved into house arrest today…and out of prison which is a good thing. And that way we obviously will do what we can to look after their health and well-being as best as we can," he said.
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"I don’t want to get ahead of where we are, in terms of the negotiations," Kirby continued. "Getting them out of prison is a good, first step but it’s still a delicate set of negotiations and I just don’t think it's helpful for me to go into much detail over what it's going to take to eventually secure their freedom. When they go back home, if we are successful and if we can get them back home and hopefully that will happen soon, you bet, I will come back on your show and we’ll talk about all of the things that had to be done to make that happen," Kirby said.
"I will be happy to do with it and answer any questions people have. But right now, we want to make sure they are okay and we can continue to get them home."
Asked to respond to criticism surrounding the United States' hand in potentially unfreezing Iranian assets overseas, Kirby responded, "We are certainly mindful of all the things that Iran does to its own people and to people throughout the region. This is a dangerous nation-state and it's one we continue to challenge."
The American prisoners include Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz, who the U.S. government says were all wrongfully detained on bogus spying charges. The names of the other two were being withheld by their families, but one is said to be a scientist, the other a businessman.
In a statement released Thursday, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said that while the move to house arrest is an "encouraging step," negotiations for their eventual release remain "ongoing and are delicate."
"These U.S. citizens — Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, Emad Shargi, and two Americans who at this time wish to remain private — should have never been detained in the first place," Watson said.
"We will continue to monitor their condition as closely as possible. Of course, we will not rest until they are all back home in the United States," the statement added. "Until that time, negotiations for their eventual release remain ongoing and are delicate. We will, therefore, have little in the way of details to provide about the state of their house arrest or about our efforts to secure their freedom."
The prisoner swap agreement, mediated by Oman, Qatar and Switzerland, is to be carried out over a series of coordinated steps. The three released prisoners whose identities are known are Namazi, who was detained in 2015 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison on internationally criticized spying charges; Shargi, a venture capitalist sentenced to 10 years in prison; and Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent who was arrested in 2018 and also received a 10-year sentence.
Iranian media in the past identified several prisoners of interest with cases tied to violations of U.S. export laws and restrictions on doing business with Iran.
The alleged violations include the transfer of funds through Venezuela and sales of dual-use equipment that the U.S. alleges could be used in Iran’s military and nuclear programs. Iran has been enriching uranium and stockpiling it as part of its advancing nuclear program.
Iran also wants access to assets frozen abroad, particularly some $7 billion in Iranian assets tied up in South Korean banks. Already, Tehran seized a South Korean oil tanker amid the dispute and threatened further retaliation in August.
Fox News' Danielle Wallace and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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