Hostage Aid Worldwide (HAW) is encouraged by the news on recent developments in the ongoing progress of the UK hostage negotiations with Iran, and potential imminent release of British hostages Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashoori held in Iran. We would like to use this occasion to highly encourage the Biden administration to diligently pursue the freedom of American hostages held in Iran.

Two Americans and a U.S. permanent resident whom Washington says were held hostage by Iran for years until it freed them during the term of former President Donald Trump have urged his successor Joe Biden not to make gestures toward Tehran until it frees other U.S. hostages.

Ten months into his administration, President Joe Biden’s “constructive engagement” with Iran through rigorous “diplomacy” has not only failed to bring Iran back to the compliance of the 2015 nuclear deal, but it also has been unable to release even a single American or European hostage held in Iran.

After undergoing a five-day hunger strike in Vienna, Austria, to raise awareness about hostages held in Iran, Barry Rosen, a former-U.S. hostage in Iran, has received wide support and praise from Iranian activists of various faiths living in the United States and Europe for his efforts.

The Biden administration is urging a 77-year-old former U.S. hostage in Iran to call off a hunger strike in Vienna aimed at pressing for a U.S.-Iranian deal to free Americans and other Westerners of Iranian origin detained in Iran.

British-Iranian Anoosheh Ashoori, who is being held in Iran on spying charges, is beginning a hunger strike.The retired civil engineer, who is approaching his 68th birthday, has been detained in Evin prison for four years and denies the charges against him.

Opinion: I was a hostage of Iran in 1979, and they’re still seizing people. Here’s how to stop them.