WASHINGTON, Feb 04(INP): The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton impressed upon Iran to "unilaterally release" three hikers and other Americans in Iranian custody as she denied there were any negotiations on a prisoner swap.
Earlier, the US rejected Iran's proposal of a prisoner swap for several Iranians jailed in the US for the three American hikers currently behind the bars in Iran.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the hikers should be released immediately on humanitarian grounds.
Her remarks came a day after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested that talks were under way regarding such a swap.
Mrs Clinton called Iran's allegations against the hikers "unjust". "There are no negotiations taking place between the United States and Iran. We believe they should unilaterally release our detained citizens," Mrs Clinton said at the State Department after a meeting with Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa,
Hillary Clinton said there is no basis for their continued detention.
She repeated previous demands that all US citizens held in Iran should be released "without delay" on humanitarian grounds because their detention "is baseless."
''We call on Iran to release all of the American citizens that they have currently detained,''
''We believe they are being unjustly detained and they should be released without further delay. We also are very committed to making it clear to the Iranians that they should do so on humanitarian grounds since the detention of our citizens is baseless.''
Iranian officials have previously alleged that the three were spying.
Iranian authorities arrested the three hikers - Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal - in late July after they strayed across the Iranian border from Iraq's northern Kurdistan region where they were hiking. Their families have said they accidentally crossed the border and meant no harm.
No comments:
Post a Comment