Secretary of State John Kerry stated that he was “extremely upset, frustrated” at the “inappropriate” photos of captured US sailors taken by Iran in an interview aired on Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room.”
Kerry said, regarding pictures of the captured sailors on their knees with their hands on their heads, “I was extremely upset, frustrated. It was inappropriate. And I made it very, very clear to the Iranians that we needed those people back, and we needed them right away.”
Kerry added, “my counterpart, Foreign Minister Zarif, responded promptly. He could not have been more serious. He understood the gravity of the situation. President Rouhani, others engaged, and within a matter of very few hours we did what could not have been done a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. We wouldn’t have known who to call three years ago. … That could have become a major hostage situation. It could have been very, very dangerous, but because we have a channel of communication, because we have worked on this nuclear agreement, we were able to resolve this. That is very important.”
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