five americans detained in iran have been transferred from prison to house arrestas announced by their families and Washington on Thursday, the first step in a fragile agreement that could mean the release of billions of dollars for Tehran.
Progress towards the release of these detainees – one of whom has been almost eight years retained – occurs after discrete and intense talks between Washington and Tehran, adversaries for decades.
The next stage of an agreement, according to a source close to the negotiations, could be the transfer of 6,000 million dollars of Iranian funds frozen in South Korea to a special account in Qatar. Iran could use it for humanitarian purchases like food and medicine.
However, when asked about it, the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinkmade it clear on Thursday night that “Iran will not benefit from no relief from sanctions“.
“Funds from Iran must be used and transferred to restricted accounts so that they can only be used for purposes humanitarian“, he claimed.