As Details On The U.S. - Iran Prisoner Swap Become Known, Critics See Capitulation

Secretary of State John Kerry delivers a statement in Vienna. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

New Yorker: Prisoner Swap: Obama’s Secret Second Channel to Iran

Fourteen months ago, President Obama authorized a top-secret, second diplomatic channel with Tehran to negotiate freedom for Americans who had disappeared or been imprisoned in Iran. It was a high-risk diplomatic gamble. The initiative grew out of nuclear negotiations, launched in the fall of 2013, between Iran and the world’s six major powers. On the margins of every session, Wendy Sherman, the top American negotiator, pressed her Iranian counterparts about the American cases. The Iranians countered with demands for the release of their citizens imprisoned in the United States for sanctions-busting crimes. More than a year of informal discussions between Sherman and her counterpart, Majid Takht Ravanchi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry official in charge of American and European affairs, led to an agreement, in late 2014, that the issue should be handled separately—but officially—through a second channel. After debate within the Administration, Obama approved the initiative. But it was so tightly held that most of the American team engaged in tortuous negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program were not told about it.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The critics are not impressed .... Release of Americans looks like a win for Obama, but critics see capitulation (Washington Post), but the White House is sticking to its position .... Obama administration defends Iran deals on prisoners and sanctions (The Guardian)