American detainees leave Iran under exchange deal

In public comments, Obama had insisted as recently as mid-December that linking the Americans’ fate directly to the nuclear negotiations would have encouraged the Iranians to seek additional concessions. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting in Vienna with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and other officials involved in the accord, and it was expected that such certification could come Saturday.

Iranian state television is announced that the government has freed four dual-nationality prisoners.

There had been expectations that they would leave on Saturday, while the final round of talks on sanctions were taking place.

Meanwhile Conservative Hemayat said the nuclear deal would not “resolve the problem with the village chief” – referring to the USA – and hardline Keyhan argued that the deal had not led to a let-up in U.S. “anti-Iranian propaganda”.

The United States and the European Union lifted a broad swath of economic sanctions against Iran on Saturday as the International Atomic Energy Agency certified it had dismantled most of its nuclear program, opening a new, cautious chapter in relations between Tehran and the West.

The latest developments as Iran and world powers implement a landmark deal reached previous year to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of global sanctions (all times local).

Four Americans detained in Iran have been released, the USA said Sunday.

HORSLEY: Sure. Well, the administration stresses that the Iranians who are being released were charged, or in some cases convicted, of sanctions violations, not terrorist-related activity or violent crimes. Six of them have…

Six of the seven are dual citizens. A fifth American was released separately.

Though there was no official government confirmation of who was on the plane that landed at Ramstein Air Base, a US military facility in southwest Germany, it’s believed Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Marine veteran Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini were all on the same aircraft. U.S. student Matthew Trevithick was released in Iran independently of the exchange on Saturday and has already left the country.

Pastor Abedini was sentenced to 8 years in an Iranian prison for “attempting to sway Iranian youth away from Islam” and creating house churches. Obama had said that the administration feared that tying the American prisoners to the nuclear agreement would make it harder to walk away from the nuclear talks if Iran was demanding too much.

The U.S. officials described the released Iranians as convicts or suspects in sanctions violations – offenses that Iran’s government has never recognized as legitimate.

“Iran has also committed to continue co-operating with the United States to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson”, a U.S. official said.

“To bring back Americans wrongly imprisoned, we release seven terrorists who helped Iran with their nuclear program and agreed not to prosecute another 14 terrorists for doing the same thing”, the Texas senator said on “Fox News Sunday”.

Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Michigan, said Hekmati’s father had fallen ill in the more than four years that his son has been detained.

Trevithick has left Iran, administration officials said. “You can probably hear them now, jumping up and down, asking ‘When are we going to see him?’ It’s been a time of rejoicing”.

Hekmati went to Iran to visit family and spend time with his ailing grandmother.

“There are still many unknowns”.

Hekmati’s family wrote, in a statement posted on Facebook, that they “remain in hopeful anticipation”. He spent more than 500 days at Evin Prison.

The lawyer for Mechanic, who has been jailed since his indictment last April on charges of illegally exporting microelectronics technology to Iran, said his client was “elated” to be pardoned. Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders praised diplomacy as the key to solving the detainee issue. The family suspects Levinson is being held in Iran despite Tehran’s claims to the contrary. “We insisted that he be in the mix as well”, a U.S. official said. His arrest was criticized by the White House and US media.