The heartsick wife of imprisoned Pastor Saeed Abedini is begging the White House to cut a deal with Iran to free her husband before inking a nuclear arms deal.
"How can we trust Iran with any deal when they're holding Americans hostage? How can we even consider making any deals?" Naghmeh Abedini said Friday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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"That's my message to our president and to [Secretary of State] John Kerry — that before any deal is made, Iran should show some kind of good faith effort to try to build some trust."
"The small step would be to release the Americans they're holding hostage."
Saeed Abedini is a former Muslim who converted to Christianity in 2000, met and married his wife, Naghmeh, a U.S. citizen, two years later and settled in Idaho.
But during a trip back to Iran, Saeed was arrested and sentenced to eight years for trying to spread his Christian faith in Iran, allegedly undermining Iranian national security.
Naghmeh said the ordeal has been particularly hard on the couple's young children, Rebekka, 7, and her brother, Jacob, 6.
"They look through their albums every night … and they're falling apart," she said.
"My son last week, he came to me and he had a picture of daddy holding him and he was kissing daddy and he said, 'Mommy, look, he's holding me and we're kissing, I'm kissing his cheek.
"I just could see the longing in his eyes that he wanted that touch, he wanted that feel of daddy. They're trying desperately to remember him. It's been years."
Naghmeh hopes for a miracle, but says she has not seen any positive actions by the government as yet.
"I really haven't felt like there's any movement in getting him out. We're so determined to make a deal with Iran that all the other issues such as my husband and the prisoners Iran's holding, Americans that Iran's holding in prison is on the back burner," she said.
"I still haven't had any confirmation that anything's being done to bring him home."
Next week is the deadline for six world powers, including the United States, to reach a deal on an Iranian nuclear program.
The talks are aimed at limiting on Iran's nuclear capabilities in return for an end to sanctions that have crippled its economy.
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