Officials and family members revealed on Thursday August 10, that Iran has transitioned five Americans from incarceration to house arrest, marking the initial phase of a sensitive agreement aimed at unlocking billions of dollars in Iranian assets and facilitating the departure of these prisoners from the Islamic republic.

Iran has moved five Americans from jail to house arrest, officials and family members said Thursday, in the first step of a delicate deal that would unfreeze billions of dollars in Iranian funds and allow the prisoners to leave the Islamic republic.

The progress on the prisoners, one of them detained for nearly eight years, comes after quiet, exhaustive diplomacy between the longtime adversaries whose separate talks on restoring a nuclear deal broke down.

Sources familiar with the negotiations said that the next step would be the transfer of $6 billion frozen in South Korea to a special account administered in Qatar which Iran could use for humanitarian purchases such as food and medicine.

Iran described the deal as a prisoner swap, with the state-run IRNA agency quoting Tehran’s mission to the United Nations as saying that each country will be “granting amnesty and releasing five prisoners.”

If all goes as planned, the prisoners could leave Iran sometime in September, one source said on condition of anonymity.

Four of the prisoners, Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharqi, Morad Tahbaz and another who preferred to remain anonymous, were taken Thursday out of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, a day after President Joe Biden’s administration informed their families of a breakthrough in talks.

Sources said that a fifth American, a woman, is also part of the discussions and had already been moved in recent weeks to house arrest.

A spokeswoman for the US National Security Council called the release to house arrest “an encouraging step” but said Iran should never have arrested the five Americans.

At the center of discussions has been the unblocking of the $6 billion in Iranian funds frozen in South Korea.

Tehran earned the money from oil sales but Seoul blocked the funds to comply with US sanctions imposed under former president Donald Trump that hit the Iranian economy hard.

While stressing that the arrangement was not final, sources said the funds would be converted from won to euros with their use for non-sanctionable trade administered under Qatar, which played a key mediator role. No funds would be transferred directly to Iran.

Khalil Wakim, with AFP