Iran Rejects Trump's Warning About Not Releasing American Citizens

The spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry dismissed Donald Trump's warning regarding the consequences of not releasing American citizens as "interference in Iran's internal affairs and unacceptable and rejected." He emphasized that these statements would have "no impact" on the status of these prisoners. According to the state news agency IRNA, Bahram Qasemi claimed that the American citizens imprisoned in Iran had engaged in "violating national security and the laws of the Islamic Republic," and that the judiciary, which is "independent" from other branches, would deal with them. He stated that "interventionist and threatening statements" from American officials and institutions would have "no effect" on their "trial and punishment." Qasemi also reiterated previous positions of Iranian officials regarding Robert Levinson, stating that he left Iran and that there has been "no new information about his fate available to the Islamic Republic of Iran." Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent, has been missing for ten years and was reportedly last seen on Kish Island. The White House had announced on Friday that Trump and his administration were intensifying efforts to secure the return and release of all American citizens unjustly imprisoned worldwide. The White House statement highlighted the sentencing of Xiao Wang to ten years in prison, stressing that the Islamic Republic has used "arrest and hostage-taking as a tool of state policy" for about 40 years since its inception. According to the judiciary-affiliated website Mizan, Xiao Wang was arrested on August 9 last year and had collaborated with the Sharmin and Bijan Masour Rahmani Research Center at Princeton University, Harvard University, and the Iran Research Center at the British Institute. The Iranian judiciary news agency accused this researcher of copying digital documents related to non-confidential Iranian libraries. The arrest of this American citizen comes at a time when several Iranian-American citizens and Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese citizen residing in the U.S., are also imprisoned in Iran. Meanwhile, on May 6, some members of the U.S. House of Representatives had urged the Trump administration to take specific actions for the "unconditional release" of Iranian-American prisoners in Iran. The House members noted that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had "taken hostage" Siamak Namazi, Baqer Namazi, Karan Vafadari, and a fourth citizen whose identity has not been publicly disclosed, as well as Afrin Niyasari and Nizar Zakka, who have permanent residency in the U.S. In recent years, especially before the nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA, a significant number of citizens in various countries, including the United States, have been prosecuted for violating sanctions against Iran and for connections with the Islamic Republic with the intent of sending sanctioned items. Meanwhile, Abbas Araghchi, the deputy foreign minister, on Saturday, without referring to the White House statement, called on the United States to release "recently arrested Iranians." The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson also demanded that the U.S. take action for the "immediate release" of Iranian prisoners in that country and "cease the judicial prosecution of several Iranian citizens in other countries, one of whom died due to an unjust extradition request from the U.S." These two foreign ministry officials did not mention the names of these prisoners. In January 2016, following the Vienna nuclear agreement, Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter in Iran, Amir Hekmati, a former Marine, Saeed Abedini, a Christian convert, and Nasratollah Khosravi Roudsari were released, and in exchange for their release, the U.S. freed seven Iranian prisoners in that country. It later became clear that the U.S. had simultaneously provided $400 million in cash to Tehran upon the release of these four prisoners from Iranian jails, which was part of Iran's confiscated assets related to military purchases from the U.S. during the Shah's time.