TEHRAN, March 12. /TASS/. Tehran and Washington have reached preliminary agreements on the issue of prisoner exchange, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Sunday.

"As part of the talks on the lifting of the sanctions, the exchange of messages [between Iran and the United States] continues and we have arrived at a preliminary agreement on prisoner exchange. If there are no obstacles from the United States, the swap will take place within days," the Mehr agency quoted his as saying.

Iran’s authorities have repeatedly said they are ready to exchange prisoners with the United States but insisted that this matter be addressed independently from the nuclear dossier. US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley told Reuters in late January 2021 that Washington was unlikely reach an agreement with Tehran on the restoration of the nuclear deal unless the Iranian side released four American nationals. It was reported in early October 2022 that one of them was released from an Iranian prison with Oman’s mediation and returned to the United States.

According to Iranian judicial official Ali Bagheri, around 15 Iranian nationals are being kept in the United States on charges of trying to bypass the US sanctions.