Kerry: Post reporter’s release among best days as secretary

by Jesse Byrnes - 01/28/16 12:08 PM ET

An emotional Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that the day Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and others were released from Iran was “one of the days that I enjoyed the most as secretary of State.”

“It was also perhaps the most nerve-wracking,” Kerry added to chuckles while speaking at inauguration of the newspaper’s new headquarters, referring to the Jan. 16 release of Rezaian and three other Americans held in Iran.

{mosads}”For much of the 18 months I was in prison, my Iranian interrogators told me that The Washington Post did not exist, that no one knew of my plight and that the United States government would not lift a finger for my release,” Rezaian said in prepared remarks, adding his advocates “proved the Iranians wrong.”

Rezaian thanked Kerry and U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk for working to get him released. He praised the efforts of his colleagues and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, who the reporter said “gave me a ride home to freedom.” Bezos, the billionaire CEO of Amazon, flew the reporter home on his private jet.

“Obviously this is particularly sweet for everybody now that Jason is home,” Kerry said in his remarks before choking up. “In the military, as you know, and in other dangerous callings, the most sacred pledge that you can make is to never leave a buddy behind. Like most pledges, it’s a lot easier to say than to do.”

After his remarks, Kerry gave Rezaian a bear hug and shook hands with Bezos.

Kerry said in his speech that the imprisonment of the Americans “gnawed at us, because we sensed the wrongfulness.”

He noted that only about 1 in 6 people lives “in a country where the press can truly be described as free,” adding that a “country without a free and independent press has nothing to brag about, nothing to teach and no way to fulfill its potential.”

“To those who try to intimidate or imprison reporters, we need to stand up and say loud and clear that committing journalism, reporting on the truth, is not a crime, it is a badge of honor, it is a public service,” Kerry said.

Kerry said it was his “fondest hope” that news outlet’s foreign and war correspondents had “nothing to report.”

He also spoke to the family of Robert Levinson, the former FBI officer who went missing in Iran in 2007.

“We will continue and do continue to make the same efforts that we made for everyone else to find out what has happened there,” he said.

Tags American hostages Iran Jason Rezaian John Kerry