Iran and US Conduct Prisoner Swap, Releasing 5 Each

On Monday, Iran and the United States conducted a prisoner swap, releasing five detainees from each side.

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Five American prisoners, along with two of their family members, boarded a plane that left Tehran for Qatar's capital Doha, Al Jazeera reported. In the meanwhile, U.S. media reported that U.S. President Joe Biden has granted clemency to five Iranians as part of the prisoner swap deal.

Earlier on Monday, Iran's Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesman Nassar Kanaani confirmed in a press conference that the swap would happen on Monday.

Kanaani said five Iranian nationals imprisoned in the U.S. would be released, and Iran would hand over the same number of American citizens incarcerated in Iran.

Two of the Iranian nationals to be released would return to Iran, one would travel to another country where his family is living, and two others would remain in the U.S., where they had been living before their imprisonment.

The Iranian Central Bank Governor Mohammad Reza Farzin confirmed that his country's assets previously frozen in South Korean banks, amounting to around US$5.94 billion, have been transferred to six Iranian accounts in two Qatari banks.

The unfreezing of the Iranian assets is widely seen as part of the prisoner swap deal between Tehran and Washington. However, Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian denied in August any link between the prisoner swap with the U.S. and the release of the country's frozen assets abroad.