WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday called for Iran to release all American prisoners held in the country as the coronavirus outbreak reportedly spreads through its prisons.
鈥淭he United States will hold the Iranian regime directly responsible for any American deaths. Our response will be decisive,鈥� US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
鈥淩eports that COVID-19 has spread to Iranian prisons are deeply troubling and demand nothing less than the full and immediate release of all American citizens.
鈥淭heir detention amid increasingly deteriorating conditions defies basic human decency.鈥�
Iran鈥檚 response to the deadly coronavirus outbreak, including temporarily releasing 70,000 prisoners, was 鈥渢oo little, too late,鈥� a UN rights expert said Tuesday.

Javaid Rehman, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said Tehran was trying to 鈥渇udge鈥� its handling of the outbreak, one of the deadliest outside China, where the disease originated.
鈥淭he situation on coronavirus is highly disturbing within Iran,鈥� Rehman told reporters at the UN in Geneva.
Iran on Tuesday reported 54 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest single-day toll since the start of the outbreak there. That brought the numbers killed in the country to 291 out of 8,042 infected.
The Iranian judiciary鈥檚 Mizan Online official news agency cited Asghar Jahangir, the head of Iran鈥檚 prisons organization, as saying that 鈥渁bout 70,000 prisoners鈥� had been released in a bid to combat the outbreak.
Iran said in December it was ready for more prisoner swaps with the United States after it secured the return of scientist Massoud Soleimani in exchange for Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-born American held in the Islamic republic.
Decades-old tensions between Tehran and Washington have escalated steeply since 2018, when US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran.