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Captive Americans, Families Grateful for Years of U.S. Efforts to Free Them From Iran

Joyous friends and family of Jason Rezaian, Amir Hekmati and Saeed Abedini thanked the U.S. government for its efforts to free the Iranian captives.
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Joyous relatives and friends of three of the Americans released from captivity in Iran effusively thanked supporters and the U.S. government for securing their freedom as details emerged Monday that they were in relatively good condition.

"It's surreal. It's unbelievable," Nagmeh Abedini, the wife of Saeed Abedini of Boise, Idaho, told NBC station KTVB. "I woke up my kids at 7:30 and told them Daddy's coming home, [and] they were jumping up and down and excited."

Saeed Abedini, a Christian minister who was helping start an orphanage in Iran when he was arrested in 2012, was among four Americans freed in a complicated prisoner swap Saturday.

Three of them — Abedini, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and Marine veteran Amir Hekmati of Flint, Michigan — arrived Sunday in Germany, where they were being treated at the U.S. Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

Editors of The Washington Post met with Rezaian on Monday and said he was "looking good" but faced a recovery process that could take months or even years.

Executive Editor Martin Baron and foreign editor Douglas Jehl released a photo through the newspaper showing a smiling Rezaian wearing a hooded gray sweatshirt.

Image: Jason Rezaian with his family in Germany
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, left, with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, his mother, Mary Rezaian, and his brother, Ali Rezaian, in Landstuhl, Germany, on Monday.The Washington Post via Reuters

"I want to thank my family, especially the efforts of my brother Ali, and my wife in Iran and my mother everywhere she was," the newspaper quoted Rezaian as saying.

"I also want to thank everybody at The Post and my colleagues in other media as well, as well as everybody in the U.S. government who played an important role in my release," he said.

Meanwhile, Hekmati's sister, Sarah Hekmati, arrived in Germany for their long-awaited reunion, which occurred at 6 p.m. (noon ET) with Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Michigan.

Kildee posted a message from Amir Hekmati, who was held captive for more than four years, thanking President Barack Obama.

The fourth captive American, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, elected to remain in Iran, The Associated Press reported. Khosravi-Roodsari's case hadn't been publicly reported before the release, and little remains known about Khosravi-Roodsari, whose name doesn't appear in publicly available records.

A fifth American, Matthew Trevithick, a Boston University graduate studying Farsi in Tehran, was released independently of the prisoner exchange and arrived home Sunday in Hingham, Massachusetts.

Related: Americans Freed by Iran Are Met With Joy, Long-Awaited Reunions

A White House official told NBC News that Obama hadn't yet spoken with the freed prisoners but that he had been in extensive contact with their families.

The president said Sunday that his administration had been "tireless" in working to bring the four Americans home.

"I gave these families my word — I made a vow — that we would do everything in our power to win the release of their loved ones," he said.