Kerry: ‘Absolutely a Coincidence’ Sanctions Delayed During Prisoner Negotiations

DOOCY: “Right. And in fact, over the weekend this country has put a new sanctions on the country of Iran, after those ballistic tests of missiles in October. Mr. Secretary there’s a story out there that apparently the Iranian foreign minister called you up and said that if you were to put these sanctions on earlier, it’s going to screw up this prisoner swap thing.”
KERRY: “No.” [crosstalk]
DOOCY: “That’s —“
KERRY: “No, no. We never —“
DOOCY: “That was a report in Reuters. So, you’re saying that didn’t happen?”
KERRY: “No, he never called me up to suggest that. And we had conversations about the track, but these tracks were separate. We almost had these folks out several months ago, and then there was a snag that occurred and delayed things.”
DOOCY: “But the timing Mr. Secretary, looks a little suspicious. You know, we —“ [crosstalk]
KERRY: “Well what can I say? We were not going to waste any time to getting them home —“
DOOCY: “So, it’s just a coincidence?”
KERRY: “That is absolutely a coincidence.”
DOOCY: “Hmm.”
KERRY: “We — as I say, we almost had them out, we had an agreement, I thought in principle two months ago.”
KILMEADE: “Right.”
KERRY: “And then there was — there was a difference of opinion over the meaning of something. We had to work that through over the course of the next months.”
KILMEADE: “Right.”
KERRY: “But this was a separate track and we kept it separate very distinctly. And I might add that it was, and this is important for people to note that we were lifting sanctions as a result of the Iranians walking back their nuclear program, making the world safer, allowing inspectors in, destroying their centrifuges, their reactor and indeed, there was going to be a lifting of sanctions there. And it made sense for us to link sanctions related offenses which were about to expire anyway and be released, to the release of our people who had years ahead of them in jail. I’m convinced we got what we — what can be considered to be an appropriate agreement for the United States of America and our people are home and thank God for that.”