Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani on March 4, 2023. ATTA KENARE / AFP
The attitude “non-constructiveof France vis-à-vis Iran and itsinterventionismdo not facilitate discussions on the possible release of French detainees in the country, an Iranian diplomacy official said on Monday. “I hope that we will see a positive evolution in this filesaid Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani during his weekly press briefing.
“Of course, country positions and actions can play a positive role” for that. Gold “the French government has adopted a non-constructive attitude and demonstrated interventionism in the recent situation of the Islamic Republic“, he added, answering the question of a French journalist present in Tehran. “Naturally, the continuation of such actions will not help in settling the issue of prisonersconcluded Nasser Kanani.
Strong challenge from France
France is one of the countries that most firmly denouncedrepressionof the wave of protests that shook Iran after the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini following his arrest in Tehran by the morality police, who accused him of having broken the strict dress code imposing the wearing of the veil to women in public. Officially, six French people are detained in Iran: the teacher and trade unionist Cécile Kohler and her companion Jacques Paris, the Franco-Irish Bernard Phelan, Louis Arnaud and Benjamin Brière, as well as another national whose identity has not been made public.
The Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in June 2019 and then sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security, was released on February 10. Iran announced on Sunday that everything was “readyto carry out a prisoner exchange with the United States, but Washington dismissed this statement as “another cruel lie“.
Read alsoWho are the six French detainees in Iran?
Nasser Kanani said on Monday that “negotiations with the United States continued through mediators“, the two countries do not have diplomatic relations. He reaffirmed that awritten agreement had been signed in March 2022so that an exchange of prisoners could be organized withoutbe linkedto the negotiations for the lifting of sanctions in the Iranian nuclear file.
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