'Tehran has detained Iranian-American'

"Several Iranian-Americans and US-based Iranian experts reported that they received suspicious emails sent from the businessman's account", Iran Wire reports. Prior to the organization's creation, Namazi drafted a presentation in 1999 with NIAC founder Trita Parsi promoting the idea of a lobbying group that pushed Iranian interests such as the removal of US sanctions.

Siamak Namazi, a Dubai-based businessman with dual US and Iranian citizenship, was detained while visiting relatives in Tehran, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources. I was among those hacked. The State Department has repeatedly pressed for their release. Iran is now beginning a series of serious cutbacks to a program that could have produced a bomb-and greater regional geopolitical leverage-within months.

The representative declined to be identified publicly, citing the political sensitivities surrounding the issue.

A consulting company in Iran with which Namazi previously had ties, Atieh Bahar, denied to AP that he had any ongoing role there.

Namazi, who is reportedly in his 40s, has a bachelor's degree in global relations from Tufts University and a master's in urban and regional planning from Rutgers University. "Trade of medical supplies is legal in theory and virtually impossible in practice because Iran can not pay for the Western medicine it needs", Namazi wrote in a Times Op-Ed, in 2013. Forget the U.S.-Russian standoff: The real rivalry with the potential to upset Syria negotiations may be coming from two forces a lot closer to the country in question: Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Namazi's reported arrest comes as hard-liners in Iran remain opposed to a detente with the United States in the wake of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers. There was speculation in that a few in Iran want to bargain a prisoner swap with the USA for others held within the Islamic Republic, like detained Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.

U.S. secretary of state John Kerry mentioned the detained Americans in a meeting with Iran foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif earlier this week in Vienna, where he is in discussions with Iranian diplomats about the Syrian war.

What's at stake now, for both sides, is the future of the revolution-and who controls its course. He was in Iran visiting family at the time he was arrested, which came following a string of interrogations of Iranian businessmen with ties to foreign companies.

The State Department will not discuss Namazi.

According to the New York Times, an Iranian-American business consultant was detained by Iranian police in Tehran, on October 15, but his arrest wasn't confirmed until just yesterday. Besides Namazi and Rezaian, Iran is also holding a former Marine named Amir Hekmati, of Michigan, and Saeed Abedini, a Christian preacher who had resided in Idaho. All the Americans have been convicted of espionage or various forms of subversion. The U.S. is also looking for former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in the country in 2007. He had been invited by the government to speak at a conference on entrepreneurship. His friends said he was being held in Tehran's Evin prison, which is where political opponents of the government are kept. The Hekmati family are his constituents. "So do the other four Americans either detained or missing in Iran". Dozens were picked up. "If it doesn't, more Iranian men, women and children will suffer needlessly". With the nuclear agreement with Iran completed back in July, NIAC launched a new round of fundraisers throughout the USA, the relationship between the two countries was - it seemed - improving.