The Trump Administration has been ramping up American efforts to bring home citizens held unjustly overseas, according to a Washington Post report. Otto Warmbier’s family recently credited the Trump Administration for helping bring the 22-year old home from North Korea imprisonment. However, President Trump has been working on releasing American worldwide.
The Trump Administration has been working particularly hard in Iran to free two Iranian Americans, including a very ill 81 year old man. Siamak Namazi, a businessman, was arrested in Tehran in October 2015. His father Baquer Namazi, a former United Nations official, was arrested a month later. They were charged with espionage and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
John Kerry was not able to secure their release during the Obama Administration’s Iranian nuclear deal. The Trump White House is currently reviewing American Iranian policy to find leverage to bring them home. A White House official said of the review:
“The president has directed his administration to get personally involved and bring everyone home that we can. That’s what are you are seeing with the Namazi case, and we want to extend that to all the Iranian cases and beyond.”
Siamak Namazi’s brother, Babak Namazi, said in an interview with the Post that he had renewed hope to reunite his family, saying:
“It was a slow start, and as the months were going by I was getting frustrated by where is this going…[but] I got the clear impression that the release of my father and brother was now becoming a top priority for the Trump administration.”
The negotiations are considered extremely delicate and are reportedly being kept secret for now.
(via: Liberty Writers)
