US denies Iranian state TV report on deals to release US, British prisoners

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Source: USA Today

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will free prisoners with Western ties in Iran in exchange for billions of dollars from the United States and the United Kingdom, state television reported Sunday. The U.S. immediately denied the report, while the U.K. did not respond.

The state TV report quoted an anonymous official just as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei began giving what authorities earlier described as an "important" speech. However, Khamenei did not immediately discuss any proposed swap amid negotiations in Vienna over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers.

The official quoted by Iranian state TV said a deal made between the U.S. and Tehran involved a prisoner swap in exchange for the release of $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds.

"The Americans accepted to pay $7 billion and swap four Iranians who were active in bypassing sanctions for four American spies who have served part of their sentences," state TV said, quoting the official in an on-screen crawl.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-denies-iranian-state-tv-report-on-deals-to-release-us-british-prisoners/ar-BB1ghy71?li=BBnb7Kz

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You know RWNJ media is going to run with this.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. UK is also sceptical this means anything

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Iran treatment 'amounts to torture', says Dominic Raab

...
Following the foreign secretary's interview, an anonymous official cited on Iranian state TV suggested the UK had paid a £400m debt to free her - but the Foreign Office insisted its position was unchanged.

It said Iran has made the claim before, without Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe having been released. A Foreign Office spokesman said it continued "to explore options to resolve" the case and would not comment further while "legal discussions" were ongoing.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said the family had not been updated but welcomed the signals from Tehran over the long-running dispute as "a good sign".

"My instinct is that it is actually a sign we are in the middle of negotiations rather than at the end of them," he told the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56963590

In the UK's case, the debt is real and acknowledged (dating from the Shah's era); the dispute is about interest on it.

[speak easy]

2. This sort of trolling makes me 'indignant'.

How about 7 billion megatons and we will call it quits