Iran to keep US hostages until $6 billion ‘ransom’ hits bank accounts

Iran won’t let five US hostages leave the country until nearly $6 billion of what critics blast as a “ransom” payment hits regime bank accounts, state-backed media reported Friday.

Mohammad Jamshidi, deputy chief of staff for political affairs to Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi, said billions in sanctioned oil assets held by South Korea are being released to the accounts — but that US prisoners won’t be freed until the funds are fully transferred, a source told the Islamic Republic News Agency.

“It is important to note that prisoners sought by the United States still remain in Iran,” the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Ministry said in a Friday statement after acknowledging the transfers had begun.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Officials in Tehran moved the American hostages to house arrest Thursday as part of an agreement that will reportedly release several Iranians in US prisons and let the regime use its unfrozen funds for humanitarian needs through an account at the central bank of Qatar.

However, a top advisor to Iran’s nuclear negotiating team posted online that Tehran would have “full and direct access to its released assets.”

“[T]here will be no Qatari companies involved, Iranian banks will have full control, and they can purchase goods and services without any limitation or restriction,” Seyed Mohammad Marandi declared on X, formerly known as Twitter.

White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson called the deal “an encouraging step” but said “negotiations” for US citizens held in Iran “remain ongoing and are delicate.”

“We will continue to monitor their condition as closely as possible,” she said in a Thursday statement. “Of course, we will not rest until they are all back home in the United States.”

Also on Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “this is just the beginning of a process that I hope and expect will lead to their return home to the United States,” adding: There’s more work to be done to actually bring them home. My belief is that this is the beginning of the end of their nightmare.”

But former Vice President Mike Pence, who’s running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, criticized President Biden for greenlighting “the largest ransom payment in American history to the Mullahs in Tehran.”

“Iran will now use this money to produce drones for Russia and fund terrorism against us and Israel,” he posted on X. “China and Russia, who are also holding Americans hostages, now know the price has just gone up.”

Trump administration officials — including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton — also slammed the deal.

The American hostages include Siamak Namazi, businessman Emad Shargi and environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, along with two other unnamed people.

Iranian authorities arrested Namazi in 2015 for allegedly cooperating with the US as head of strategic planning at the Dubai-based Crescent Petroleum. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Jared Genser, a pro bono attorney for Namazi, said the movement out of Evin Prison in Tehran to house arrest “is at best the beginning of the end and nothing more,” but warned “there are simply no guarantees about what happens from here.”

“While the release of hostages is always welcomed, we should keep in mind that they should neither have never been detained nor used as bargaining chips,” Dr. Ramesh Sepehrrad, chair of the Organization of Iranian American Community Advisory Board, told The Post. “Rewarding hostage-taking under any pretext only begets more victims and maintains Tehran’s hostage diplomacy as profitable.”

“Rewarding the tyrants ruling Iran, as we approach the anniversary of 2002 nationwide uprising, will only fuel their terror machines at home and abroad,” she added. “To end hostage diplomacy and the threat of the Iranian regime, the U.S. must adopt a firm policy centered on human rights and supporting the Iranian nation’s call for regime change as evident in several rounds of uprisings.”