Iranian state television said on Sunday that Tehran would free four Americans accused of spying in exchange for four Iranians held in the United States and the release of $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds.
\nThe White House and US State Department had no immediate comment.
\nState TV, quoting an Iranian official, also said that British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe would be released once Britain had paid off a military debt owed to Tehran.
\nThe British Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\n\u201cInformed source says Biden administration has agreed to release four Iranian prisoners jailed for bypassing US sanctions in exchange for four American \u201cspies\u201d,\u201d Iranian state TV said.
\n\u201cRelease of Nazanin Zaghari in exchange for UK\u2019s payment of its 400 million pound debt to Iran has also been finalised. The source also said the Biden administration has agreed to pay Iran $7 billion,\u201d it said.
\nIran and world powers are holding talks to revive the 2015 nuclear accord that Washington abandoned three years ago.
\nIranian officials told Reuters last month that an interim deal could be a way to gain time for a lasting settlement that involved unfreezing Iranian funds blocked under US sanctions.
\nTehran and the powers have been meeting in Vienna since early April to work on steps that must be taken, touching on US sanctions and Iran\u2019s alleged breaches of the 2015 deal, to bring Tehran and Washington back into full compliance with the accord.
\nIran says $20 billion of its oil revenue has been frozen in countries like South Korea, Iraq and China under the US sanctions regime since 2018.
\nUS national security adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week\u201d on Sunday, said no deal had been reached with Iran in the Vienna talks.
\n\u201cThere is still a fair distance to travel to close the remaining gaps. And those gaps are over what sanctions the United States and other countries will roll back. They are over what nuclear restrictions Iran will accept on its program to ensure that they can never get a nuclear weapon.\u201d
\nSullivan was not asked about prisoner swap or funds release.
\nSpeaking earlier on Sunday, British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab told Times Radio: \u201cWe recognise the IMS debt should be repaid and we\u2019re looking at arrangements for securing that.\u201d
\nZaghari-Ratcliffe, a charity worker, has been held in Iran since 2016. She served a five-year sentence for spying charges then last month was sentenced to a further year in jail on propaganda charges.
\nShe has denied the accusations and her husband says she is being used as a bargaining chip by Tehran in the dispute over the debt and in the talks on the nuclear deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iranian state television said on Sunday that Tehran would free four Americans accused of spying in exchange for four Iranians held in the United States and the release of $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The White House and US State Department had no immediate comment. State TV, quoting an Iranian official, also said that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n