Iran said on Tuesday it was holding talks on prisoner exchanges with the United States to release Iranians held in US jails and other countries.
"Negotiations are underway on the exchange of prisoners between Iran and America, and we will issue more information if Iranian prisoners are released and the country's interests are secured and the talks reach a conclusion," Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei said, Reuters reported.
"Iran is ready to exchange all political prisoners in exchange for the release of all Iranian prisoners who have been detained around the world ,” he added.
They include those “who have been detained upon US orders” or at Washington’s request, he added, saying that “the negotiations on this issue are ongoing.”
US envoy for Iran Robert Malley called the release of Americans detained in Iran a “priority” and said that negotiations with Iran have “made some progress.”
Malley said that US President Joe Biden insists on the release of all Americans and will not accept a “partial deal.”
Malley pointed to the 2016 prisoner swap with Iran that freed a group of Americans without securing the release of an Iranian American businessman.
"I worked on this issue in the Obama administration when we secured the release of a number of our unjustly detained citizens, but not all," Malley said last week, speaking to a group of former prisoners and families of those still imprisoned in Iran.
Malley said the 2016 episode is understandably "a very sore point" with the relatives of Namazi, who is still imprisoned and whose elderly father, Baquer, was later detained in 2016 and remains barred from leaving the country.
"It's something that weighs very heavily on me and on us, a number of us who were involved with the deal that was concluded in 2016. And this is some work that we need to complete," Malley added.
"I know for so many of you, if not all of you, how personal and how difficult this situation is," Malley said.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had "put forth a plan to swap all Iranian and American prisoners.”
In May, Washington denied reaching a deal to swap four prisoners who are detained by each country.
