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Iranian scientist Majid Taheri returned to the Islamic Republic on Monday after his release from jail in the United States last week, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported.
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Taheri was greeted at Iran's Imam Khomeini International Airport by deputy foreign minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari, said ISNA, which published a picture of the pair speaking to reporters.
His release was part of a prisoner exchange deal – a rare instance of US-Iran cooperation – which saw Michael White, a US Navy veteran detained in Iran since 2018, freed last Thursday.
Whites release came two days after the US deported Sirous Asgari, an Iranian professor imprisoned in the US despite having been acquitted of stealing trade secrets.
Shortly after arriving in Tehran, Taheri thanked Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, according to state media.
"I thank the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and dear officials, including Mr. Zarif, who worked hard, and other officials who took months to help release me, as an Iranian physician accused of circumventing US sanctions on medicine," he was quoted as saying.
On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Tehran was ready for more prisoner exchanges with Washington. "If the possibility of exchanging prisoners exists, we have the readiness to free the rest of the individuals who are imprisoned in America and return them to the country," he said.
Macron calls for 'immediate release' of French-Iranian academic
French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah however is still behind bars in Iran, a year after her arrest on June 5, 2019.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called for her “immediate release” and said her detention was “unacceptable”.
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