Al Thani’s remarks come after the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday announced that Iran and the US have reached a prisoner swap deal that also includes the release of Iranian funds. 

Qatar believes in resolving disputes through peaceful means and dialogue, the top Qatari diplomat said, adding that his country played an important role in facilitating the dialogue between Tehran and Washington.

Before the agreement was reached between Iran and the US, Qatari officials had paid visits to Washington and Tehran, he reminded.

According to reports, the release of the funds has been agreed upon as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Tehran and Washington, in line with which each side would hand over several prisoners to the other.

On Thursday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani wrote a tweet confirming that the release of the funds was underway, adding that the pending freedom of the US-held Iranians was to take place “within the same framework.”

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. Former US President Donald Trump illegally pulled out of the deal in 2018 while the current US President, Joe Biden, has signaled that he is ready to resurrect the agreement.

Russia, the UK, Germany, China, the US, and France have been in talks with Iran since April 2021 to reinstate the deal.

The talks to salvage the JCPOA kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April 2021, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.

The negotiations have been at a standstill since August due to Washington’s insistence on its hard-nosed position of not removing all the sanctions that were slapped on the Islamic Republic by the previous US administration. Iran maintains it is necessary for the other side to offer some guarantees that it will remain committed to any agreement that is reached.

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