Nourizadeh says Iran was probably hoping to win the release of five Iranian military men captured by U.S.forces in Kurdistan in 2005 in exchange for Saberi, but eventually realized that such a trade would not work.
VOA: standard.2009.05.06
Inevitably, such a solution boils down to insistence that multinational forces be withdrawn from the region in exchange for Iraqi forces being moved a relatively short distance up the road.