Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday that a deal to exchange French prisoners in Iran for an Iranian woman held in France is approaching its final stages.
“We have carried out a great deal of activity, and I can now say that we have reached the point where the exchange of the French prisoners in Iran is now approaching its final stages,” Araghchi said in a televised interview, without elaborating further.
The French nationals at the center of the negotiations are Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, a literature teacher and her partner who were arrested in May 2022 while on a tourist visit.
The couple has been held in Tehran’s Evin Prison under what French officials have described as “inhumane” and “appalling” conditions.
They face severe charges, including “spying for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad,” “conspiracy to overthrow the regime,” and “corruption on earth,” all of which carry the death penalty.
The French government has consistently and adamantly denied these accusations, referring to Kohler and Paris as “state hostages”.
In exchange, Iran is seeking the release of Mahdieh Esfandiari, an independent Iranian journalist and translator arrested in France in early March . Esfandiari is accused of “apologie du terrorisme,” a charge related to publishing Telegram posts in support of the October 7 Hamas attack on ‘Israel’..
France, along with Germany and the United Kingdom, has officially notified the UN of its intention to reimpose sanctions using the “snapback” mechanism in the 2015 nuclear agreement.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has explicitly stated that any decision on sanctions would be “conditional on resolving” the issue of the imprisoned French nationals.