The United States is unlikely to strike an agreement with Iran to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal unless Tehran releases four US citizens Washington says it is holding hostage, the lead US nuclear negotiator told Reuters on Sunday.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
The official, US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley, repeated the long-held US position that the issue of the four people held in Iran is separate from the nuclear negotiations. He moved a step closer, however, to saying their release was a precondition for a nuclear agreement.
"They're separate and we're pursuing both of them. But I will say it is very hard for us to imagine getting back into the nuclear deal while four innocent Americans are being held hostage by Iran," Malley told Reuters in an interview.
"So even as we're conducting talks with Iran indirectly on the nuclear file we are conducting, again indirectly, discussions with them to ensure the release of our hostages," he said in Vienna, where talks are taking place on bringing Washington and Tehran back into full compliance with the deal.
However, Iran on Monday ruled out any US preconditions for reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, including the release of American prisoners held by the Islamic republic.
"Iran has never accepted any preconditions by the United States... The US official's comments on the release of US prisoners in Iran is for domestic use," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a weekly news conference.
In recent years, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on espionage and security-related charges.
Rights groups have accused Iran of taking prisoners to gain diplomatic leverage, while Western powers have long demanded that Tehran free their citizens, who they say are political prisoners.
Tehran denies holding people for political reasons.
Malley was speaking in a joint interview with Barry Rosen, a 77-year-old former US diplomat who has been on hunger strike in Vienna to demand the release of US, British, French, German, Austrian and Swedish prisoners in Iran, and that no nuclear agreement be reached without their release.
Rosen was one of more than 50 US diplomats held during the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis.
"I've spoken to a number of the families of the hostages who are extraordinarily grateful for what Mr. Rosen is doing but they also are imploring him to stop his hunger strike, as I am, because the message has been sent," Malley said.
Rosen said that after five days of not eating he was feeling weak and would heed those calls.
"With the request from Special Envoy Malley and my doctors and others, we've agreed [that] after this meeting I will stop my hunger strike but this does not mean that others will not take up the baton," Rosen said.
The indirect talks between Iran and the United States on bringing both countries back into full compliance with the landmark 2015 nuclear deal are in their eighth round. Iran refuses to hold meetings with US officials, meaning others shuttle between the two sides.
The deal between Iran and major powers lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear activities that extended the time it would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb if it chose to.
Then-US President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reimposing punishing economic sanctions against Tehran. Iran responded by breaching many of the deal's nuclear restrictions, to the point that Western powers say the deal will soon have been hollowed out completely.
When asked whether Iran and the United States might negotiate directly, Malley said, "We've heard nothing to that effect. We'd welcome it."
The four US citizens include Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi, 50, and his father Baquer, 85, both of whom have been convicted of "collaboration with a hostile government."
Namazi remains in prison. His father was released on medical grounds in 2018 and his sentence later reduced to time served. While the elder Namazi is no longer jailed, a lawyer for the family says he is effectively barred from leaving Iran.
"Senior Biden administration officials have repeatedly told us that although the potential Iranian nuclear and hostage deals are independent and must be negotiated on parallel tracks, they will not just conclude the nuclear deal by itself," said Jared Genser, pro bono counsel to the Namazi family.
"Otherwise, all leverage to get the hostages out will be lost," he added.
The others are environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 66, who is also British, and businessman Emad Shargi, 57.
Meanwhile, using Iranian bank funds freed from American sanctions, South Korea has paid Iran's $18 million in delinquent dues owed to the United Nations, Seoul said Sunday. The step was apparently approved by Washington to restore Tehran's suspended voting rights at the world body.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Seoul had paid the sum using Iranian assets frozen in the country after consulting with the United States Treasury – a potential signal of flexibility amid floundering nuclear negotiations.
The ministry said it expected Iran's voting rights to be restored immediately after their suspension earlier this month for delinquent dues.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Iran state television's English-language arm Press TV quoted Iran's permanent representative to the UN as confirming that the dues had been paid and Iran's voting rights would soon be restored. He did not specify how the money had been paid.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran, as an active member of the United Nations, has always been committed to paying its membership dues on time," Majid Takht-e Ravanchi said. He expressed outrage at the US for what he called its "brutal and unilateral sanctions against Iran" that have prevented Tehran from gaining access to funds to pay the arrears for the past two years.
The funds had been impounded at Korean banks under sanctions imposed by Trump after he withdrew the US from the nuclear deal. The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control must grant a license for these transactions under the American banking sanctions imposed on Iran. The Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the unfrozen funds.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
Under the United Nations Charter, a nation that owes the previous two full years' worth of dues loses its voting rights at the General Assembly.
A letter from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres circulated earlier this month revealed that Iran was among several delinquent countries on that list, which also includes Venezuela and Sudan. The General Assembly can make exceptions to the rule, determining that some countries face circumstances "beyond the control of the member."
According to the secretary-general's letter, Iran needed to pay a minimum of $18.4 million to restore its voting rights.
Iran also lost its voting rights in January of last year, prompting Tehran to lash out at the US for imposing crushing sanctions that froze billions of dollars in Iranian funds in banks around the world. Tehran regained voting rights last June after making the minimum payment on its dues.
Iran over the past few years has pressured Seoul to release about $7 billion in revenues from oil sales that remain frozen in South Korean banks since the Trump administration tightened sanctions on Iran.
The frozen funds hang in the balance as diplomats struggle to revive the nuclear deal. Senior South Korean diplomats including Choi Jong Kun, the first vice foreign minister, flew to Vienna this month to discuss the fate of the assets with their Iranian counterparts.
