The Trump administration has quietly ramped up its involvement in trying to free two Iranian Americans being held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, including one who is in very poor health. The effort is now not only a focus of the administration’s approach to Iran, but also part of an overall increase of attention to the plight of Americans held unjustly abroad.
Siamak Namazi, an Iranian American businessman, was arrested in Tehran in October 2015 and charged with espionage and collusion with an enemy country — the United States. When Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated for the release of five American hostages to coincide with the announcement of the Iran nuclear deal, Namazi was not among them. The following month the Iranians arrested his father Baquer Namazi, a former longtime United Nations official who is 81 years old and in poor health.
Both have been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Now, as the Trump administration conducts a comprehensive review of its Iran policy, the White House is considering new action to bring them home.
“The president has directed his administration to get personally involved and bring everyone home that we can,” a senior administration official said. “That’s what are you are seeing with the Namazi case, and we want to extend that to all the Iranian cases and beyond.”
The behind-the-scenes effort to press for the release of both Namazis is not new; State Department and National Security Council officials met with Babak Namazi, Siamak’s brother and Baquer’s son, in February and again in March. But now the administration is kicking the effort into high gear. Babak Namazi was invited to a meeting of several senior officials at the White House June 13, chaired by deputy national security adviser Dina Powell.
Two senior administration officials said that the Trump administration is now considering a range of measures to pressure the Iranians to release the Namazis and two other American citizens held by Iran. Those options are still secret, but include sticks more than carrots, the officials said.
The Trump administration has been ramping up its involvement in a number of cases of Americans held by governments abroad. The administration successfully negotiated with the Egyptian government to release American Aya Hijazi in April, another operation that Powell was highly involved in.
National Security Council official K.T. McFarland met with the parents of Joshua Holt, a 25-year-old from Utah who has been held by the Venezuelan regime since last June. There have been other senior level interactions with the families of Americans detained abroad that the administration is keeping secret based on the desire of those families for privacy, officials said.
One senior administration official said that the Trump administration is determined to come up with a new strategy to minimize the incentives for foreign governments to unjustly hold Americans in the first place. Top officials involved in that discussion include Tom Bossert, the White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, and Julia Nesheiwat, the acting special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.
