Family of Americans Held in Iran Urge Biden to Make Their Release a Priority

Babak Namazi, the brother and son of two prisoners in Iran, who hold both U.S. American and Iranian citizenship and who have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms in Iran, addresses the media in Vienna on April 25, 2017. Leonhard Foeger/Reuters

WASHINGTON—The family of an Iranian-American jailed in Tehran and his father, who is unable to leave Iran, urged U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday to make their freedom a precondition of any deals between the United States and Iran.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, including several Americans, in recent years, mostly on espionage charges. Rights activists accuse the country of trying to use the detentions to win concessions from other countries, though Tehran dismisses the charge.