Tag Archives: Iran

Wife of U.S. pastor imprisoned in Iran hopes to reunite, rebuild marriage

BOISE (Reuters) – Naghmeh Abedini is looking forward to reuniting next week with her husband, Saeed, the Iranian-American pastor freed on Saturday after more than three years in an Iranian prison.

But she’s not rushing the reunion.

In an interview at her parent’s home in Boise, Idaho on Wednesday, Abedini said that rebuilding their marriage after her husband’s imprisonment will take time.

The relationship, she said, has been strained in recent months by the publication of an email she sent to friends and supporters late last year. Her note described “physical, emotional, psychological and sexual” abuse by her husband, who she said was addicted to pornography.

Reuters could not independently confirm Abedini’s allegations about her husband.

Saeed Abedini was traveling to Asheville, North Carolina, on Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

Suzan Johnson Cook, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom under Obama for more than two years until late 2013, said she was not aware of any abuse allegations during the time she advocated on Saeed Abedini’s behalf.

“I dealt with it strictly from a political standpoint,” she said. “I came to know her through the meetings at the State Department, but in terms of private life, that wasn’t my business.”

Saeed Abedini, 35, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced by an Iranian court in 2013 to eight years in prison for allegedly compromising Iran’s national security by setting up home-based Christian churches there. He was arrested after returning to Iran for what was supposed to be a short trip to set up an orphanage.

“I have hope that we can work through all the issues and we can restore our marriage,” Naghmeh Abedini, 38, told Reuters in a wide-ranging interview. “My Christian faith does give me a lot of hope in that.”

Naghmeh Abedini said she expects the family will enter counseling, and that she will continue working to promote religious freedom and bring attention to Christian persecution.

“PHONE-TO-PHONE CALLS”

In the first months of her husband’s confinement, Abedini said, their contact was limited to what she called “phone-to-phone calls.” He would occasionally be allowed to call his parents in Tehran, and they would then dial her on a separate line and hold the phones together. His parents subsequently moved to the United States.

“I could barely hear him. He could barely hear me,” Naghmeh Abedini recalled. “I just remember yelling into the phone, ‘We’re going to get you out! Hang in there!’”

Later, she said, the couple communicated directly on a number of occasions by phone or Skype. During that time, Naghmeh said, her husband became increasingly abusive, possibly because of  his long confinement. She declined to elaborate on the nature of the abusive behavior.

Half a dozen Saeed Abedini supporters reached by Reuters all said they had no direct knowledge of any abuse.

Mark DeMoss, a spokesman for Christian evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham, who advocated for Saeed’s release from prison, said, “I can’t speak to his thoughts or reaction to anything Naghmeh has said or written about their marriage.”

Luke Caldwell, a family friend and son of the founder of Cavalry Chapel where the Abedinis attend church, described their reunion as a “complex situation” that requires “a lot of prayer and support.”

“You wish it was as easy as, everyone’s fine, but 3-1/2 years of separation and disconnection,” he said. “Ultimately, they need to reunite that love and that connection.”

Graham and other faith leaders took up the cause of Saeed Abedini, whom they saw as a symbol of Christian persecution.

Politicians, too, advocated on his behalf. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz prayed for Abedini outside the White House, and Donald Trump hosted Naghmeh Abedini at a meeting in New York. President Obama, too, spoke with her, promising that he would do all he could to secure her husband’s release.

Saeed Abedini, who arrived in the United States on Thursday, will spend several days with his parents at a North Carolina retreat run by Graham, his wife said. She said she and their children – Rebekka, 9, and Jacob, 7 – will join him there on Monday.

North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger, who spoke with Saeed at a U.S. military hospital in Germany where the Idaho pastor received medical attention, said on Wednesday that Saeed was “in great shape” physically and looked “strong.”

At times, Abedini was convinced he wouldn’t make it out of jail alive, Pittenger said, but his captors began treating him better in the last months of his ordeal.

“He’s been through some pretty harsh treatment,” said Pittenger, who spent three years advocating for Abedini’s release. “He said, ‘I’m a changed person. I’ll never be the same after what I’ve been through.’”

Pittenger added: “He wants to be a good husband and father.”

“CRAZY ONE-YEAR MISSION”

Saeed and Naghmeh Abedini met in Iran in 2002, while she was there on what she says was a “crazy one-year mission” to share her Christian faith with her Muslim relatives. Captivated by Saeed’s religious passion, and his work in establishing home-based churches, Naghmeh, returned to Iran in 2003. The couple married about a year later.

“He just grabbed my attention,” she said. “He was really passionately worshipping. I feel like there was a light on him.”

Abedini said that she and her twin brother converted to Christianity from Islam when they were 9 years old, soon after moving to the United States with their parents to escape the war with Iraq. She said they were introduced to the religion by a family member living in the United States.

At the time, she said, her Muslim parents were horrified by the conversion, but 13 years later, they and her younger sister also embraced Christianity.

Naghmeh Abedini’s parents declined to be interviewed.

Saeed Abedini, who became a Christian in 2000, came to the attention of Iranian authorities because of his work encouraging home-based Christian churches, his wife said . After he was taken in for questioning in late 2005, the couple left the country rather than risk arrest.

United Nations human rights officials have repeatedly called on Iran to stop detaining Christians on vague national security charges.

Iranian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the circumstances of Abedini’s legal troubles and imprisonment in Iran.

When the Abedinis and their children returned to visit his family in 2009, Naghmeh Abedini said, Saeed was under house arrest for three months, during which time he was questioned repeatedly for up to 14 hours at a time.

Another family visit to Iran in 2011 was cut short by fears of another arrest, Naghmeh Abedini said, causing her to decide never to return. Her husband went back in 2012, however, with plans to establish an orphanage. He was placed under house arrest in June of that year and imprisoned in late September.

“It was probably not the smartest idea to go back, with all the history,” Naghmeh Abedini said, “but he did it, and as a wife, I just let him.”

PUBLIC ADVOCACY, PRIVATE PAIN

During most of her husband’s time in prison, Abedini served as the public face of the campaign for his release. But their private conversations, she said, became ever more fraught.

“I just couldn’t understand – the more I fought for him the more abusive he was becoming,” she said.

Because of that, and out of concern that she wasn’t spending enough time with her children, Naghmeh Abedini decided to pull back from her advocacy work in the fall of 2015. At that time, she sent the emails about her marriage that attracted so much attention. She said she was “very upset” when they were made public, in a Christianity Today article, and that her husband was “devastated.”

“I don’t know what’s next, and that’s OK,” she said. “Right now, in my life, I’m at a place of complete unknown, and I’ve come to find peace with that.”

(Additional reporting by Heather Somerville in San Francisco, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Louis Charbonneau in New York; Editing by Sue Horton and Brian Thevenot)

Former Marine held in Iran returns home, pastor set to arrive today

(Reuters) – Former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, released by Iran in a prisoner swap last weekend, arrived home on Thursday after more than four years in jail in the Islamic Republic.

Hekmati 32, touched down in a private jet at the airport in his home town of Flint, Michigan.

“I am happy to finally be home. It’s been a very long road, a very long journey. Unfortunately, many people have traveled this road with me,” he told reporters.

Hekmati was arrested while visiting relatives in Iran in 2011 and accused of being a U.S. spy. He was sentenced to death the following year but that was commuted to a 10-year prison term.

He said on Thursday he was “healthy, tall and with my head held high.”

He was one of five Americans released to coincide with the implementation of a nuclear deal under which international economic sanctions against Iran were lifted in return for curbs on Tehran’s atomic program.

The White House offered clemency to seven Iranians who were convicted or facing trial in the United States.

Another former prisoner in Iran, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, 35, was set to arrive in Atlanta and then fly to Asheville, North Carolina, on Thursday to be reunited with members of his family over the next several days, his wife told Reuters.

Abedini, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Iranian origin, will spend time at a religious retreat in North Carolina associated with evangelist Billy Graham.

Abedini was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2013 after being accused of harming Iran’s national security by setting up home-based churches in Iran.

(Reporting by David Bailey, Colleen Jenkins and Ben Klayman; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Saudi Arabia warns against ‘nefarious activities’ by Iran

RIYADH (Reuters) – The lifting of sanctions on Iran as a result of its nuclear deal with world powers will be a harmful development if it uses the extra money to fund “nefarious activities”, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Reuters on Tuesday.

Asked in an exclusive interview if Saudi Arabia had discussed seeking a nuclear bomb in the event Iran managed to obtain one despite its atomic deal, he said Saudi Arabia would do “whatever we need to do in order to protect our people”.

“I don’t think it would be logical to expect us to discuss any such issue in public and I don’t think it would be reasonable to expect me to answer this question one way or another,” he said.

Jubeir’s comments were the first to directly address the lifting of sanctions on Iran, Riyadh’s bitterest regional rival, although Saudi Arabia has previously welcomed Iran’s nuclear deal so long as it included a tough inspections regime.

But in private, officials have voiced concern that the deal would allow Iran greater scope to back militias and other allies across the region thanks to the extra funds it can access after sanctions are lifted and because of the reduced diplomatic pressure.

“It depends on where these funds go. If they go to support the nefarious activities of the Iranian regime, this will be a negative and it will generate a pushback. If they go towards improving the living standards of the Iranian people then it will be something that would be welcome,” Jubeir said.

Saudi officials have also in recent years voiced fears that their most powerful ally, the United States, is disengaging with the Middle East, something some of them have said may have contributed to Syria’s descent into civil war.

Jubeir said he did not believe Washington was retreating from the region, but emphasized that the world looked to it as the sole superpower to provide stability.

“If an American decline were to happen or an American withdrawal were to happen, the concern that everybody has is that it would leave a void, and whenever you have a void, or a vacuum, evil forces flow,” Jubeir said.

SECTARIAN TENSIONS

Riyadh accuses Tehran of fomenting instability across the region and the two back opposing sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and political tussles in Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain.

Last year Saudi Arabia began a military campaign in Yemen to stop an Iranian ally from gaining power. The two rival powers accuse each other of supporting terrorism, detribalizing the region and inflaming sectarian hatred.

Jubeir said Iran’s support for Shi’ite Muslim militias across the region was the main source of sectarian ill will, but acknowledged that this had produced what he described as “a counter reaction in the Sunni world”.

Asked about inflammatory rhetoric from Saudi Sunni clerics, Jubeir said he could not comment on remarks he had not seen, but said the government encouraged dialogue and inclusion and discouraged extreme or disparaging language.

The state-appointed Imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque this week wrote a Tweet alleging an “alliance of the Safavids with the Jews and Christians against Muslims”, using a sectarian-tinged term often used to describe Iranians or Shi’ites.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Ralph Boulton and Janet Lawrence)

Americans missing in Baghdad kidnapped by Iran-backed militia

WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Three U.S. citizens who disappeared last week in Baghdad were kidnapped and are being held by an Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia, two Iraqi intelligence and two U.S. government sources said on Tuesday.

Unknown gunmen seized the three on Friday from a private residence in the southeastern Dora district of Baghdad, Iraqi officials say. They are the first Americans to be abducted in Iraq since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011.

The U.S. sources said Washington had no reason to believe Tehran was involved in the kidnapping and did not believe the trio were being held in Iran, which borders Iraq.

“They were abducted because they are Americans, not for personal or financial reasons,” one of the Iraqi sources in Baghdad said.

The three men are employed by a small company that is doing work for General Dynamics Corp, under a larger contract with the U.S. Army, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The Iraqi government has struggled to rein in the Shi’ite militias, many of which fought the U.S. military following the 2003 invasion and have previously been accused of killing and abducting American nationals.

Baghdad-based analyst Hisham al-Hashemi, who advises the government, said the kidnappings were meant to embarrass and weaken Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is trying to balance his country’s relations with rival powers Iran and the United States.

“The militias are resentful of the success of the army in Ramadi which was achieved with the support of the U.S.-led coalition and without their involvement,” he said.

SECTARIAN TENSIONS

Shi’ite militias were kept out of the battle against Islamic State in Ramadi for fear of aggravating sectarian tensions among the Sunni population in the western city.

Baghdad touted the military’s advance there last month, with backing from coalition airstrikes, as evidence of a resurgent army after it collapsed in 2014.

The State Department said on Sunday it was working with Iraqi authorities to locate Americans reported missing, without confirming they had been kidnapped.

Asked about the kidnapping at the daily U.S. State Department news briefing on Tuesday, spokesman John Kirby said: “The picture is becoming a little bit more clear in terms of what might have happened.” He provided no details.

Kirby declined to say whether Secretary of State John Kerry had contacted Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif about the kidnapping.

Hostility between Tehran and Washington has eased in recent months with the lifting of crippling economic sanctions against Iran in return for compliance with a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions and a recent prisoner swap.

However, the United States imposed sanctions on 11 companies and individuals on Sunday for supplying Iran’s ballistic missile program.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Zargham in Washington and Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Iran’s supreme leader welcomes sanctions lift, warns of U.S. ‘deceit’

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday welcomed the lifting of international sanctions against Iran, but warned that Tehran should remain wary of its old enemy the United States.

State television reported that Khamenei wrote to President Hassan Rouhani to congratulate him on implementing the nuclear deal, which resulted in U.S., European Union and United Nations sanctions being lifted over the weekend.

In his first comments since the deal took effect, Iran’s highest authority made clear that Washington should still be treated with suspicion. He made no mention of a surprise prisoner exchange that also took place this weekend.

“I reiterate the need to be vigilant about the deceit and treachery of arrogant countries, especially the United States, in this (nuclear) issue and other issues,” Khamenei said.

“Be careful that the other side fully meets its commitments. The comments made by some American politicians in last two, three days are suspicious,” he added.

Republican candidates for the U.S. presidency have criticized the deal, and some Iranian officials fear Washington could walk away from the deal when President Barack Obama leaves office in early 2017.

Hopes for a broader rapprochement between the two countries were dashed on Sunday when Washington slapped new sanctions on companies accused of supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program, drawing an angry response from Iranian officials.

(Reporting by Sam Wilkin and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Iran detained American sailors at gunpoint, U.S. military says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The 10 U.S. sailors who were briefly detained by the Iranian military last week were held at gunpoint and had a verbal exchange with Iranian personnel before they were released, the U.S. military said Monday.

Just two days after the United States and other world powers lifted sanctions on Iran, the military released its most comprehensive timeline to date of the events surrounding the sailors’ brief detainment.

In a news release, the military said the sailors also had two SIM cards pulled out of their satellite phones, but that there was no gunfire exchange.

There were no details on the verbal exchange the sailors had with the Iranians.

The U.S. sailors, who were aboard two patrol craft, were detained by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on January 12 when they inadvertently entered Iranian territorial waters. They were released the next day after being held for about 15 hours.

The U.S. military said the Americans were intercepted after the diesel engine in one of their boats developed a mechanical problem, although it was unclear if the crew was aware of their precise location.

The sailors were released unharmed and are in good health.

Their prompt release came just days before world powers lifted crippling sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran’s implementation of a deal curbing its nuclear program.

The Obama administration has said their speedy release shows the power of diplomacy and the promise of its new engagement with Iran.

Republicans, however, have been critical of the deal with Iran, and some say the detainment of the sailors shows how little regard Iran has for America.

Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz has been among some of the vocal critics. On Fox News Sunday, Cruz said the only reason the sailors were seized was because of the “weakness of Barack Obama.”

In a speech at Liberty University on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump also lambasted the administration over the incident with the sailors.

“Those young people were on their hands and knees in a begging position with their hands up and thugs behind them with guns, and then we talk like it’s OK. It’s not OK. It’s lack of respect.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said on CNN that once he heard about the sailors’ detention, he was “very frustrated and angry”, and that “I raised it immediately with the Iranians.”

He declined to give the content of his conversation, but added: “Suffice it to say that I made it crystal clear how serious this was. It was imperative to get it resolved.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Ian Simpson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)

U.S. prisoners leave Iran, arrive in Germany as Obama hails diplomatic win

WASHINGTON/ANKARA (Reuters) – Three Iranian-Americans arrived in Germany after leaving Tehran on Sunday in a prisoner swap that followed the lifting of most international sanctions on Iran under a deal U.S. President Barack Obama said cut off Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb.

In a sign of sustained readiness to track Iranian compliance with remaining United Nations curbs, the United States imposed fresh sanctions on 11 companies and individuals for supplying Iran’s ballistic missile program.

The Obama administration had delayed the step for more than two weeks during tense negotiations to free five American prisoners, according to people familiar with the matter. Iran conducted a precision-guided ballistic missile test last October, violating a U.N. ban.

Speaking after the released Americans had left Iran, Obama said Iran now would not “get its hands on a nuclear bomb” and the planet would be more secure.

“This is a good day because once again we are seeing what’s possible through strong American diplomacy,” Obama said at the White House. “These things are a reminder of what we can achieve when we lead with strength and with wisdom.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani hailed the nuclear deal as a “golden page” in Iran’s history and said the agreement could be used as a model to resolve other regional issues.

The lifting of sanctions and the prisoner deal considerably reduce the hostility between Tehran and Washington that has shaped the Middle East since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979.

A Swiss plane took Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief; Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Idaho; and Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine from Flint, Michigan, as well as some family members, from Tehran to Geneva, Switzerland.

Shortly afterward, the three left for a U.S. military base in Germany, arriving there later on Sunday, a U.S. State Department official said.

One more Iranian-American released under the same swap, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, was not aboard the aircraft. A fifth prisoner, American student Matthew Trevithick, was released separately on Saturday, a U.S. official said.

Several Iranian-Americans held in U.S. prisons after being charged or convicted for sanctions violations have also been released, their lawyers told Reuters on Sunday.

‘DOING A HELL OF A LOT BETTER’

Rezaian told two Post senior editors in a phone call on Sunday night that he was doing “a hell of a lot better than I was 48 hours ago.”

The newspaper, which released details of the conversation with Rezaian, said he “found escape in the fiction he was allowed to read, and today he was avidly reading whatever he wanted.”

Rezaian, 39, was arrested in July 2014 and sentenced in November to a prison term. Iranian prosecutors had accused him of espionage, charges the Post had dismissed as “absurd.”

Obama called family members of the released prisoners on Sunday, including Rezaian’s brother Ali, and Naghmeh Abedini, the wife of the Idaho pastor.

“I am thankful for our president and all of the hard work by the White House and State Department in making this happen,” said Abedini, who has appeared with U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator and a harsh critic of the Iran nuclear deal.

The American Iranian Council, which promotes better relationships between the United States and Iran, said in a statement on Sunday: “The prisoner exchange, Iran’s dutiful implementation of its nuclear obligations, and the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions all herald a new era of US-Iran relations.”

But the U.S. thaw with Iran is viewed with deep suspicion by U.S. Republicans as well as allies of Washington in the Middle East, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Cruz and fellow Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio praised Iran’s release of five detained Americans on Sunday, but said the deal the White House made to win their freedom would lead to more Americans being taken “hostage.”

MONTHS OF TALKS

The prisoner deal was the culmination of months of contacts, secret talks and legal maneuvering that came close to falling apart on at least one occasion.

Speaking to parliament on Sunday, Rouhani, a pragmatic cleric elected in 2013 on promises to end Iran’s years of sanctions and isolation, said he looked forward to an economic future less dependent on oil exports.

The exports are nevertheless likely to jump now that the United States, European Union and United Nations have scrapped the sanctions in return for Tehran complying with the deal to curb its nuclear ambitions, which Tehran says were peaceful.

But Rouhani noted bitter opposition to the lifting of economic curbs from Israel, some members of the U.S. Congress and what he called “warmongers” in the region – an apparent reference to some of Iran’s Gulf Arab adversaries, not least Saudi Arabia.

Presenting the draft budget for the next Iranian fiscal year, which begins in March, Rouhani told parliament the deal was a “turning point” for the economy of Iran, a major oil producer virtually shut out of international markets for the past five years.

He said later he expected 5 percent economic growth in the next Iranian fiscal year and assured foreign investors of political and economic stability.

“The nuclear negotiations which succeeded by the guidance of the Supreme Leader and support of our nation, were truly a golden page in Iran’s history,” he said.

Tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian assets will now be unfrozen and global companies that have been barred from doing business there will be able to exploit a market hungry for everything from automobiles to airplane parts.

After the prisoners were freed, it was announced that the United States and Iran settled a long-standing claim, releasing to Tehran $400 million in funds frozen since 1981 plus $1.3 billion in interest, the State Department said. The funds were part of a trust fund once used by Iran to purchase military equipment from the United States, which was tied up for decades in litigation at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague.

END OF SANCTIONS ERA

In Tehran, ordinary Iranians were cautious about what the future holds after the lifting of sanctions. Many have lived under sanctions or wartime austerity for so long that they have no clear expectations about what the future might hold.

Iran’s Gulf Arab adversaries were silent on news of the nuclear deal’s implementation, in what was perhaps a sign of unease at the rapprochement.

Israel’s opposition was evident in a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night, which said that even after signing the nuclear deal, Iran had not yet “abandoned its aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ruled on Saturday that Iran had fulfilled last year’s agreement with six world powers to curtail its nuclear program, triggering the end of sanctions.

Minutes after the IAEA’s ruling, the United States formally lifted banking, steel, shipping and other sanctions on Iran. The EU likewise ended all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions against the country. Most U.N. sanctions also automatically ended.

The end of sanctions means more money and prestige for Shi’ite Muslim Iran as it becomes deeply embroiled in the sectarian conflicts of the Middle East, notably in the Syrian civil war where its allies are facing Sunni Muslim rebels.

(Additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Sam Wilkin in Dubai, Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Yeganeh Torbati, Joel Schectman, Arshad Mohammed, Kevin Krolicki, David Lawder and Peter Cooney in Washington and Barbara Lewis in Brussels; Writing by Yara Bayoumy and Peter Cooney; Editing by William Maclean, Dominic Evans, Janet McBride, Kevin Liffey and Jonathan Oatis)

Steps to Freedom, Iran Prisoners Released

VIENNA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The first glimpse of a secretly negotiated U.S.-Iran prisoner exchange came on Saturday in a flurry of early morning electronic filings in federal courts from New York to California as prosecutors dropped sanctions violations cases against more than half a dozen Iranians.

The legal steps were soon followed by Iran’s announcement via state media that it was freeing four Iranian-Americans, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini and Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine.

The prisoner swap was choreographed to coincide with a high-level diplomatic gathering in Vienna to seal the lifting of international sanctions on Iran in return for meeting its commitment to curb its nuclear program.

The deal, a major step toward overcoming acrimony standing in the way of any further rapprochement between longtime foes Washington and Tehran, was the culmination of months of diplomatic contacts, secret talks and legal maneuvering.

And, according to an account pieced together by Reuters on previously unreported Obama administration deliberations, the prisoner exchange came close to falling apart because of a threat by Washington in December to impose fresh sanctions on Iran for recent ballistic missile tests.

The nuclear deal signed on July 14 between Iran and world powers was trumpeted by the White House as a signature foreign policy achievement by President Barack Obama. But he also faced criticism for refusing to make the accord contingent on Iran’s release of Americans known to be held by Iran.

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. officials who recounted the complex process that led to the prisoner deal stuck to that assertion but acknowledged that the nuclear deal had opened up a channel of communication about the American detainees that they were eager to use.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES CONTACTS

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who developed a close rapport during months of unprecedented talks hammering out last year’s deal, played crucial roles in moving forward on the prisoner issue.

In particular, a conversation with Zarif and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s brother in Vienna once the nuclear deal was clinched last year helped spur efforts toward a prisoner deal, U.S. officials said.

But much of the diplomatic heavy lifting was handled by Brett McGurk, a State Department envoy with strong Middle Eastern experience, who conducted months of secret negotiations with an unnamed Iranian representative, a U.S. official said.

“We have been raising these American prisoners for some time and the nuclear talks gave us the opportunity to raise it face to face,” a senior U.S. official said, adding that the U.S. side would always carve out time to discuss the prisoners on the margins of the nuclear talks.

“The Iranians said they wanted a goodwill gesture on our part as a reciprocal measure. They gave us over time a list of Iranians, mostly dual nationals, that were either imprisoned or convicted or charged in our courts,” the official said. “We whittled down the list to exclude anyone that was charged with crime related to violence, with terrorism.”

But there were some bumps and missteps along the road to Saturday’s prisoner announcement.

The day before the Obama administration was due to slap new sanctions on Iran late last month over the ballistic missile tests, Zarif warned Kerry the move could derail the prisoner deal, U.S. officials told Reuters.

Kerry and other top aides to Obama, who was vacationing in Hawaii, convened a series of conference calls and concluded they could not risk losing the chance to free Americans held by Tehran.

At the last minute, the administration officials decided to delay a package of limited and targeted sanctions, the officials said.

Asked whether Obama was involved in the decision to delay the sanctions, a senior U.S. administration official said: “This absolutely requires the president’s approval and this is something he was briefed on regularly over many months.”

“SAEED IS RELEASED”

While discussions about the prisoners was occurring, another dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, was detained by the Iranians. “We insisted that he be in the mix as well,” a U.S. official said.

In the end, Iran agreed to release Rezaian, the Post’s Tehran bureau chief held in an Iranian prison for about 18 months;  Abedini, 35, an Iranian-American pastor from Idaho; the former Marine Hekmati; and Khosravi-Roodsari, about whom little is known. A fifth prisoner, American student Matthew Trevithick, was released separately from the other four, a U.S. official said.

“It is confirmed: Saeed is released from Iranian prison,” Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh Abedini, wrote on Twitter even before official U.S. confirmation. The couple had regularly traveled to Iran on Christian mission work until 2009. He was setting up an orphanage in the country in 2012 when Iranian authorities detained him.

Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent and DEA agent, who disappeared in Iran since 2007, was not on the list.  U.S. officials have believed for several years that Levinson died in captivity. Iranian officials had repeatedly denied any knowledge of his disappearance or whereabouts.

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

Obama granted clemency to three Iranians charged with sanctions violations as U.S. authorities moved to drop charges or commute prison sentences for five other men, according to court records and people familiar with the matter.

Iranian officials have met recently with some of the prisoners held in the United States to see if they would be willing to return to Iran if a swap was agreed, said a person familiar with the cases who asked not to be identified. It was not known how many of them if any would go back.

The men pardoned were Bahram Mechanic, Tooraj Faridi, and Khosrow Afghahi, according to Mechanic’s lawyer, Joel Androphy. They were accused in 2015 of shipping electronics to Iran. Mechanic and Afghahi were being held without bail in Houston, while Faridi was out on bail. All three are Iranian-American dual citizens and had pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors filed legal motions to abandon other sanctions-related cases in courts in New York, Houston, Los Angeles and Boston.

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan, Joel Schectman in Washington, Editing by Stuart Grudgings and Ross Colvin)

Iran says it removes Arak reactor core in key nuclear deal step

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran has removed the sensitive core of its Arak nuclear reactor and U.N. inspectors will visit the site on Thursday to verify the move crucial to the implementation of Tehran’s atomic agreement with major powers, state television said on Thursday.

Removal of the core from the Arak reactor will largely eliminate its ability to yield nuclear bomb-grade plutonium, and was one of the toughest issues to resolve in the long nuclear negotiations with the six powers.

“The core vessel of the Arak reactor has been removed … and IAEA inspectors will visit the site to verify it and report it to the IAEA … We are ready for the implementation day of the deal,” spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation Behrouz Kamalvandi said.

Kamalvandi said “Implementation Day,” when Iran will start to get relief from international sanctions in exchange for curtailing its nuclear program under the July 2015 agreement, would come “very soon.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby concurred, saying “I do think we’re very close” to Implementation Day.

Kirby also confirmed that concrete had been poured into the core of the reactor. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday his Iranian counterpart had told him the core had been removed and would be filled with concrete and destroyed.

Under the deal, international sanctions against Iran will be lifted once the IAEA confirms Iran has met its nuclear commitments. Iranian officials expect the IAEA report on this to be issued on Friday. The Vienna-based U.N. watchdog has so far declined to comment on the report.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the European Union’s Federica Mogherini will issue a statement on Saturday or Sunday on the “Implementation Day” of the nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials.

The U.S. and EU sanctions have choked off nearly 1.5 million barrels per day of Iranian oil exports since early 2012, reducing its oil exports by 60 percent to around 1 million barrels a day.

Tehran has drastically reduced the number of centrifuges installed at the Fordow and Natanz enrichment sites within the last few months, and shipped tonnes of low-enriched uranium materials to Russia.

“The core’s holes will be filled with concrete … The core was initially supposed to be cut into parts but we did not accept it as we want to keep it as the symbol of Iran’s nuclear industry,” Kamalvandi told state TV.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington and Doina Chiacu in Washington, writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Frances Kerry)

Pentagon: ‘Navigation error’ led U.S. sailors into Iranian waters

MIAMI (Reuters) – The 10 U.S. sailors who were held by Iran before being released on Wednesday made a navigational mistake that led them into Iranian waters but did not communicate that to Navy commanders before being intercepted, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the information came from debriefings of the sailors, who were flown on Wednesday to a U.S. military facility in Qatar after Iran released them along with their two riverine boats.

“The information that they have given us, and through their commanders, is that they did stray accidentally into Iranian waters due to a navigation error,” Carter said in an interview with FUSION television’s Jorge Ramos, which will also air on Spanish-language Univision.

Carter’s comments were the most detailed so far from American officials on the incident, which rattled nerves just before the expected implementation of a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

Diplomats in Washington and Tehran, through a series of anxious phone calls, sought to resolve the incident quickly, ensuring it did not torpedo the nuclear accord.

In the end, Iran released the U.S. sailors – nine men and one woman – on Wednesday.

The speedy resolution of the incident contrasted with previous cases in which British servicemen were held considerably longer, in one case nearly two weeks.

Carter said the sailors apparently did not radio in to tell their commanders they were off-course before encountering the Iranians.

“They did not report this navigational error at the time. It may be that they were trying to sort it out at the time they encountered the Iranian boats and discovered they were inside of the territorial waters of Iran,” Carter said in the interview, which took place in Miami.

He denied that the sailors were on a covert mission, saying instead, “they were simply transiting from one place to another.”

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was clear that the boats did not run out of fuel.

A senior Navy official said the Navy was beginning the process of reintegrating the sailors after thorough medical, psychological and mental health examinations.

Navy officials were also staying in close touch with the families of the sailors to keep them apprised of the situation, the official said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Writing by Susan Heavey and Phil Stewart; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Dan Grebler)