TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran is ready for more prisoner swaps with the United States, the Cabinet spokesman said Monday even as he reiterated the Iranian leadership's stance that there will be no other negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
The remarks by the spokesman, Ali Rabiei, were the first after a prisoner exchange over the weekend saw Iran free a Chinese-American scholar from Princeton who had been held for three years on widely criticized espionage charges.
The scholar, graduate student Xiyue Wang, was freed in exchange for Iranian scientist Massoud Soleimani who had faced a federal trial in Georgia over charges he violated sanctions by trying to have biological material sent to Iran.
"We are ready to cooperate to return all Iranians unlawfully imprisoned in the U.S.," Rabiei told reporters at a briefing in Tehran. He said however that there will be no other negotiations with the U.S. beside this issue.
Rabiei said any further negotiations would be possible through the so-called 5+1 framework -- a reference to the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany -- under the condition that the U.S. first lift sanctions on Iran.
"The ball is in the US' court," said Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a tweet later Monday. He said Iran was "fully ready for comprehensive prisoner exchange," while attending a regional conference in Istanbul, Turkey.
In a speech in parliament Monday, Iranian lawmaker Parvaneh Salahshouri said the authorities should not have used force to serve their own interests, referring to the November protests.
"We have to find opportunities before it's too late. How can I tolerate the killing of young people as a member of parliament, and then seek re-election to represent the people?" she said. She also alleged authorities were out of touch with a changing Iranian society.
There remain other Western detainees from the U.S. and elsewhere who are held in Iran and who could be used as bargaining chips for future negotiations.
They include U.S. Navy veteran Michael White, who is serving a 10-year espionage sentence, as well as environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian with U.S. and British citizenship also initially sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Also in Iran are 83-year-old Baquer Namazi and his son, Siamak Namazi, dual Iranian-American nationals facing 10-year sentences after they were convicted of collaborating with a hostile power. Baquer Namazi now is on a prison furlough.
A Section on 12/10/2019