Mr. Genser said, “We emphasized to the administration that we are very aware of what happened today in North Korea.”
Neither Mr. Genser nor Mr. Namazi would comment on whether Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement would have an effect on efforts to free the American prisoners. But Mr. Genser said that the prisoner issue should be separate, and that an exchange of American and Iranian prisoners was possible.
“Regardless of how the president’s decision may play out in weeks and months to come, at various times both sides have been publicly outspoken about nationals imprisoned in each other’s country,” he said.
Both countries released prisoners in January 2016 when the nuclear agreement took effect. Iran has since accused the United States of holding a number of Iranian officials unjustly.
Iran is known to be holding Baquer Namazi, 81, a former Unicef diplomat; his son Siamak, 46, a business consultant; Karan Vafadari, 56, an art dealer; Morad Tahbaz, 62, an environmental activist; and Xiyue Wang, 37, a Princeton University graduate student.
A sixth American, Robert A. Levinson, a former F.B.I. agent, has been missing in Iran since 2007. Members of his family, who hold out hope that he is alive, say he would be 70.
Mr. Wang’s wife, Hua Qu, said in a telephone interview that she was thankful that Mr. Trump had mentioned Iran’s imprisonment of American citizens in his announcement on Tuesday abandoning the nuclear agreement. She also said that when she heard the news that Mr. Pompeo was bringing home the Americans from North Korea, she cried with happiness.
“I put a lot of hope in Secretary Pompeo,” she said. “I hope he can do the same for my husband.”
Cyrus Vafadari, Mr. Vafadari’s son, said in an email message that if the Iranian authorities let Mr. Trump’s repudiation of the nuclear accord affect their judicial decisions on the prisoners, “they’d be undermining their own sovereignty, and letting down their own citizens in an already uncertain time.”
Source : Nytimes
