US government’s top hostage negotiator defends prisoner swaps with foreign adversaries

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government’s top hostage negotiator defended prisoner swaps that free Americans wrongfully detained by foreign countries in exchange for the release of convicted criminals, denying on Thursday that such deals incentivize additional arrests of U.S. citizens. “The math just is not adding up — it’s actually going down, it’s going in the other direction,” Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, said of the population of wrongfully detained Americans. “My numbers,” he added, are actually going down.” The deals are “always hard decisions,” with the U.S. government often spending years trying to determine what the other country wants in exchange for the release of an American prisoner. He said that while he had been hopeful about brokering a deal to get Gershkovich home before this point, the latest development “doesn’t slow or stop us down.” Carstens has also been trying to secure the release of another wrongfully detained American in Russia, corporate security executive Paul Whelan.