Iran allows consular contact with US detainees

The three US citizens who have been in detention in Iran since the end of July have been contacted by officials from the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.

Joshua Fattal (27), Sarah Shourd (31), and Shane Bauer (27) were arrested after they crossed into Iran from Iraq without prior authorization. They have been in detention since on suspicion of illegal entry.

Since the US does not have a diplomatic post in Iran, the Swiss Embassy looks after the interests of the US and its citizens in the country.

“I can confirm… that Swiss diplomats have had access to and direct contact with the three American citizens in Iran today,” a Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman was reported to have told Reuters news agency on September 29.

“We welcome this step,” said US State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley.

During his visit to New York City to speak at the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an Associated Press interview on September 22 that he would ask the country’s Judiciary to expedite the matter of the three US detainees and to “look at the case with maximum leniency.”

During the same visit, Ahmadinejad also raised the issue of the treatment of a number of Iranians in US prisons.