The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said that Republicans in the United States had contacted Iran and asked it to push back the prisoner swap between the two countries until the US presidential election.

In January, Iran released four Iranian-Americans held in the country for various charges in exchange for seven individuals held in the United States for violating sanctions laws. The prisoner swap was the result of yearslong secret negotiations between Iran and the Obama administration that was reportedly accelerated after the landmark nuclear deal.

Shamkhani, who made the statement about the prisoner swap at a rally for the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was attempting to draw a comparison between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the pre-revolution government before the revolution, which he accused of having a policy of “capitulation.”

Shamkhani said, “On the topic of the prisoner swap between Iran and America, we showed that we will not be influenced by any type of pressure or be put under any type of foreign or domestic scenarios and we will firmly confront spies and penetrators.”