Iran Plays Down Report That U.S. Secretly Asked for Talks on Prisoners
TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian official dismissed as “old news” on Thursday a report in the Western news media that Washington had reached out to Tehran in December to establish secret, back-channel talks to negotiate the release of prisoners held by both sides.
Posted — UpdatedThe official, Hamidreza Taraghi, said that he had given interviews as far back as July to Iranian news outlets about similar attempts by the Trump administration to arrange secret talks on prisoners using intermediaries from Oman and from Europe.
But Taraghi, an adviser to the hard-liners around the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Iran had rejected the entreaties then and would never enter into discussions with the Trump administration.
“In the nuclear deal, they have shown themselves as dishonest, so what is the use of new talks anyway?” he said, referring to President Donald Trump’s continuing threats to scuttle the pact negotiated with the United States during the Obama administration and with other world powers.
Iran acknowledged last May that it had discussed the issue of imprisoned Iranian-Americans with Trump administration officials at a meeting in Vienna on compliance with the nuclear accord. Another effort was made at a similar meeting in Vienna in December, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, but that overture and others were rejected.
At least four American citizens and two permanent residents of the United States are known to be held in Iranian prisons. A fifth American, Robert A. Levinson, has been missing in Iran for more than a decade.
Trump has repeatedly posted on Twitter about the fate of two Iranian-Americans in particular: Baquer Namazi, 81, a former UNICEF diplomat; and his son Siamak. They were convicted by an Iranian court in October 2016 of collaborating with a hostile power — meaning the United States — after a closed trial. Their convictions and 10-year sentences were upheld last November on appeal. The precise nature of the accusations against them has never been disclosed.
Taraghi refused to provide more details about the prisoners the Trump administration had been seeking to have released, but he said that Iranian officials had been contacted on numerous occasions.
“They had diplomats from Oman coming to the island of Kish,” Taraghi said, referring to an island off Iran’s south coast. “They asked European politicians to convey this message to our Foreign Ministry officials. Things like that.”
“Anyway,” he added. “This is old news, already from last summer.”
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