Qatar Hopes Iran-US Prisoner Deal Leads To Nuclear Talks

Qatar has expressed hope that a recent Iran-US prisoners exchange agreement his country brokered leads to a wider dialogue on Iran's nuclear program.

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani made the remarks on Friday, saying, "With Iran, we became a key mediator with the US in the prisoner swap agreement which we hope will lead to a wider dialogue on the nuclear deal."

During a media briefing earlier in the week, Qatar's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed bin Mohammed al-Ansari underlined Doha’s important role in achieving consensus between the two sides and facilitating communication with various stakeholders for the implementation of the agreement.

The deal entails the release of five American prisoners detained in Tehran in exchange for the liberation of five Iranian prisoners held in the United States as well as the release of $6 billion of frozen Iranian assets.

As a first step in this deal – which followed a two-year mediation effort by Qatar and Oman -- Iran on August 10 released four imprisoned US citizens from Evin prison into house arrest, where they joined a fifth already under home confinement.

These include businessman Siamak Namazi, 51, Emad Sharqi, 58, and environmental activist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who holds British nationality in addition to Iranian citizenship. The identities of the fourth and fifth Americans who either left prison or were under house arrest have not been disclosed.

World powers were in talks in Vienna for months to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The negotiations collapsed in March over Tehran’s demands that Revolutionary Guards be removed from a US list of foreign terrorist organizations and ‘guarantees’ to cushion its economy and nuclear program from the US again leaving the the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The Biden administration has been striving to bring the United States back into the JCPOA, a deal that was previously abandoned under the Trump administration.