The family members of two Americans who were released into house arrest in Iran last week as part of a deal aimed at bringing them back home to the United States hit back at criticisms about the prospective agreement.
“First and foremost, we need to bring Americans home and it is never wrong to bring an American home,” Tara Tahbaz told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on “CNN News Central” Wednesday.
Tahbaz’s father Morad Tahbaz was one of five wrongfully detained Americans transferred out of prison into house arrest as a first step in the tentative deal which would make $6 billion in Iranian assets that had been in South Korea more accessible for the purchase of non-sanctionable goods. There is also expected to be a prisoner swap component to the deal. US officials have stressed that the indirect negotiations are ongoing and sensitive.
Some Republicans, including Senate Foreign Relations Ranking Member Jim Risch and presidential candidates Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis, have criticized the transfer of the Iranian assets, with the latter two likening it to a “ransom payment.”
Neda Sharghi, whose brother Emad Shargi was also moved into house arrest, said she did not know the terms of the deal but questioned what else the US was to do but try to reach an agreement to bring home Americans who are wrongfully detained.
“Do you let an innocent American, an innocent American citizen who’s a father, a brother, just die in a foreign prison? Do you do nothing to bring them home?” she asked.
Tahbaz noted that “hostage diplomacy is such a larger issue and a national security issue and it’s not just limited to Iran.”
“I think that is definitely something that we do need to address and put things in place to deter this in the future, but it shouldn’t be at the mercy and the expenses of her brother, my father, all the other…
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