“There was an opportunity for this exchange to take place. And this exchange was, as I said, prompted by purely humanitarian motives, and I do think that the accomplishment was something that led to the happiness of the families of the prisoners,” Raisi, who is in New York for the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview.
The prisoner swap, the president emphasized, showed “the true face of our humanitarian motives and efforts".
On Monday, Iran exchanged five American prisoners for five Iranian detainees following months of indirect talks mediated by Qatar, which also saw the unfreezing of some $6 billion in blocked Iranian assets.
President Raisi told CNN that the “funds belong to people of Iran” and that his administration will spend them to “respond to the needs of the Iranian people".
The funds, owed to Iran due to oil and gas exports, had been frozen in South Korea because of the US sanctions, imposed on the country when Washington abandoned a landmark nuclear deal in 2018.
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