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Iranian media on Wednesday quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying that Iran is willing to exchange prisoners with the United States.

The semi-official FARS news agency quoted spokesman Nasser Kanaani as calling on US President Joe Biden’s administration to “take action instead of making theatrical performances”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called attention on Tuesday to the case of Iranian-American Siamak Namazi, saying that Namazi was “unjustly detained in Iran” for 2,500 days.

“We are determined to secure his freedom and ensure that all Americans who have been wrongfully detained by Iran, including his father, Baquer, can return home,” Blinken tweeted.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. side believes those detained in Iran are “being held as political pawns, presumably by the Iranian regime … in an effort to seek to exact a levy or other concession”.

“It’s a practice that’s abhorrent. It’s a practice that we condemn anywhere and everywhere it takes place,” Price added.

He said the search for the release of the American detainees is not related to the ongoing negotiations to return to the international agreement signed in 2015 that restricts Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the relief of sanctions .

The United States said separately on Tuesday that it is studying Iran’s response to a final proposal mediated by the European Union to rescind the deal.

The State Department said it received the Iran document from the EU and shared a US response with its European allies.

The official IRNA news agency in Tehran said on Tuesday that Iranian negotiators had submitted their response to the European Union and suggested they would not accept the EU’s proposal, despite warnings that there would be no further negotiations. .

“The differences are on three issues, in which the United States has expressed its verbal flexibility in two cases, but it must be included in the text,” said the IRNA report. “The third problem is related to the guarantee of the continuation of [the agreement], which depends on the realism of the United States.”

“Iran submitted a written response to the draft text of a Vienna agreement and announced that an agreement will be concluded if the United States reacts with realism and flexibility,” the agency said.

IRNA first quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian as saying, “The American side verbally accepted the two demands” made by Tehran.

A spokesman for the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, confirmed that Tehran had submitted its response and that it was being reviewed.

“We are studying it and consulting with the other participants of the JCPOA and the United States along the way,” the spokesman said, referring to the formal title of the 2015 nuclear pact.

He did not give any details about what the response contained.

The possibility of reviving the agreement, which could lead to the lifting of US sanctions on Iranian oil production, helped trigger a drop in global oil prices.

The landmark agreement has been on hold since US President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018, reimposing crippling economic sanctions against Iran.

The main countries negotiating with Iran have been waiting for Tehran’s response to the final draft that Borrell presented last week.

IRNA quoted an unidentified Iranian diplomat as saying, “The European Union’s proposals were acceptable as long as they provide guarantees to Iran on various points related to sanctions and safeguards,” as well as pending issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia resumed talks with Iran on the deal in early August after a months-long hiatus. The United States participated indirectly.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

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