Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that a “prisoner exchange” with Paris involving two French citizens in Iran and an Iranian woman in France should be concluded by mid-January.
After a meeting with his counterpart in Paris, Jean-Noel Barrot, Mr Araghchi said that “an agreement” had been reached between the two countries.
“Over the next one or two months, depending on legal procedures, I think this will be finished and the exchange will take place,” Mr Araghchi said in an interview with French television network France 24.
French citizens Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, who were arrested in May 2022, were freed from Evin prison earlier this month but are still at Paris's embassy in Tehran waiting for permission to leave Iran.
Iranian Mahdieh Esfandiari was arrested in France in February on charges of promoting terrorism on social media, according to French authorities. She is due to go on trial in Paris on January 13, but was released on bail by the French judicial authorities in October and is now at the Iranian embassy in Paris.
Iran is ready to allow Kohler and Paris to return to France but is “waiting for legal procedures in France to be finished”, Mr Araghchi said, echoing statements made by Tehran in October, after it claimed a deal was close. “Prisoner exchange based on international agreements is commonplace in international affairs. There's nothing surprising or new,” Mr Araghchi said.
France has described Kohler and Paris as “state hostages” taken by Tehran in a bid to extract concessions. They were convicted on espionage charges their families have always condemned as fabricated. Dozens of Europeans, North Americans and other western citizens have been arrested in the last few years in similar circumstances.
Iran has previously carried out exchanges of westerners for Iranians held by the West but insists foreigners are convicted fully in line with the law.
France has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such an exchange deal. In a statement issued after the meeting between Mr Barrot and Mr Araghchi, the foreign ministry confirmed that they had discussed the fate of Kohler and Paris.
It also said that Mr Barrot had expressed his “serious concern” over Iran's nuclear programme and called on Tehran to “fully co-operate” with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Iran restricted co-operation with the UN watchdog's inspectors after a US-Israel bombing campaign against its nuclear facilities in June, although it has allowed some visits to sites that were not targeted.
Mr Araghchi said sites were too dangerous to visit because of unexploded munitions and “concerns over radioactivity”. “We cannot approach the installations which have been bombarded,” he said. They include Fordow and Natanz.
He added that he had not talked to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio or special envoy Steve Witkoff for “some time”.
France, Britain and Germany in September triggered the reinstatement of UN sanctions on Iran, accusing it of breaching its international obligations. Europeans did not take part in this summer's military campaign against Iran.
