Biden says five American detainees are on their way home from Iran

President Biden on Monday hailed the return of five American detainees who Tehran released in exchange for Iranian prisoners and billions of dollars that were being held in South Korea.

At the same time, he warned Americans not to travel to Iran. He said would demand a “full account” of what happened to Bob Levinson, an American last seen in Iran.

Mr. Biden said Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, Emad Sharghi and “two citizens who wish to remain private” would soon be reunited with loved ones “after enduring years of agony, uncertainty and suffering.”

The president thanked foreign partners who facilitated the swap, including Qatar, where the prisoners stopped Monday on their way to the U.S., and South Korea, which released $6 billion in Iranian funds without fear of U.S. sanctions being applied to them.

The flights out of Iran included the five released prisoners and two family members who’d been stuck in Iran due to travel bans on them.

The White House said Mr. Biden held an “emotional” call at about 11 a.m. Monday with family members of the Americans returning to the U.S. Each family member on the call spoke to the president.

Some of the former prisoners had been held for years on charges, including espionage, that U.S. officials described as bogus.

Mr. Biden faced intense GOP criticism for the deal, which Republicans equated to paying ransom to Tehran and said it invites Iran to take more people hostage.

The White House said it had to make tough choices to bring Americans home. It warned citizens not to get caught in the Islamic Republic’s grip in the future.

“As we welcome home our fellow citizens, I once more remind all Americans of the serious risks of traveling to Iran. American passport holders should not travel there,” Mr. Biden said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a similar warning.

“While this group of U.S. citizens has been released, there is no way to guarantee a similar result for other Americans who decide to travel to Iran despite the U.S. government’s longstanding warning against doing so,” he said.

The president also said he would demand details about the fate of Levinson, an ex-FBI agent who disappeared in Kish Island, Iran, under mysterious circumstances and is presumed dead after a yearslong detention.

“Today, we are sanctioning former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence under the Levinson Act for their involvement in wrongful detentions. And, we will continue to impose costs on Iran for their provocative actions in the region,” Mr. Biden said.

He defended the prisoner deal after making similar bargains with Russia for detainees, including WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner.

Mr. Biden said his administration has brought home citizens from Afghanistan, Haiti, Myanmar, Russia, Rwanda, Venezuela, West Africa and other nations.

“Still, too many remain unjustly held in Russia, Venezuela, Syria, and elsewhere around the world,” he said. “We remain unflinching in our efforts to keep faith with them and their families — and we will not stop working until we bring home every American held hostage or wrongfully detained.”

Bring Our Families Home, a nonprofit that advocates for Americans wrongfully detained abroad, urged Mr. Biden to give attention to the case of Shahab Dalili — an American who was detained in 2016 after attending his father’s funeral in Iran. He was accused of aiding and abetting a foreign country.

“President Biden did the right thing by making a deal to bring them home — that is what a president owes to their citizens. Unfortunately, there are other families waiting for their loved ones too, most notably today, Shahab Dalili,” said BOFH spokesman Jonathan H. Franks. “Mr. President, please act on their behalf as well and know that you have our support to make whatever deals are necessary to bring them all home.”

U.S. officials were quick to insist Monday that the prisoner exchange and the unfreezing of funds did not clear the way for a larger diplomatic deal with Iran. Washington and Tehran remain deeply at odds over a host of questions, including Iran’s suspect nuclear plans, its support of anti-U.S. movements in the region, its hostility to Israel and the continuing U.S. economic sanctions on Iran’s economy. Mr. Biden and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi are both in New York to address the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday, but a direct meeting is considered unlikely.

The State Department even announced new sanctions on Iran even as the prisoner deal was going down Monday, including one targeting former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his ties to the country’s security services.

“I don’t think we should look at [the prisoner deal] as some sort of confidence-building measure to a better relationship with Iran,” said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN. “It was not orchestrated as some way of rapprochement.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington remained focused on preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

“We continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to get a sustainable, effective result, one that we had previously with the [2015] Iran nuclear agreement, and we’ll continue to see if there are opportunities for that,” Mr. Blinken told reporters in New York at the kickoff to the General Assembly gathering. “In this moment, we’re not engaged on that, but we’ll see in the future if there are opportunities.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry in a statement hailed the return of its prisoners and again challenged Biden administration claims that there were strict limits on how the recovered billions of dollars can be spent by the regime in Tehran. And it was clear there were still hard feelings In Iran in the wake of the deal as well.

“The Iranian people will never forget that even during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. regime, while ignoring the health emergency and humanitarian issues as well as repeated requests by the UN secretary general and human rights officials, denied Iran access to its financial resources in South Korea,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday.