To negotiators on both sides, it seemed clear that the United States would not approve a costly deal for the prisoners when the nuclear negotiations were falling apart.
“In the entire course of 2021 and for most of 2022, the U.S. seemed to prefer to wrap the detainee deal into the J.C.P.O.A.’s restoration,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director of the International Crisis Group, who was familiar with the negotiations from both the American and Iranian sides. “It was only late last year, when the window closed on nuclear diplomacy, that a stand-alone detainee deal was contemplated.”
Iran wanted to be able to access $6 billion in oil revenue that was sitting in accounts in South Korea, virtually unusable because of currency issues. Iran’s negotiators demanded the money be moved in a way they could use it.
The United States was insisting that money would have to be placed in restricted accounts, with controls that made it impossible to use for anything other than food, medicine, medical devices or agriculture. The Iranians rejected the proposal outright.
A month later, in mid-September, nationwide protests erupted across Iran in the aftermath of Mahsa Amini’s death in the custody of the morality police. Iran’s government responded with brutal force, and scenes of young people being shot, killed, beaten and arrested dominated headlines about Iran.
