WASHINGTON — Iran’s foreign minister on Wednesday accused the United States of being involved in the disappearance of an Iranian scientist with alleged links to Iran’s nuclear program.
The charge comes less than a week after Iran reached tentative accords with the U.S. and other major powers on addressing questions about its nuclear ambitions.
The scientist, Shahram Amiri, vanished during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia four months ago; Iran had previously called on Saudi Arabia to assist in helping locate him.
“We’ve obtained documents about U.S. involvement over Shahram Amiri’s disappearance,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.
The official IRNA news agency also quoted Mottaki as saying, “We hold Saudi Arabia responsible for Shahram Amiri’s situation and consider the U.S. to be involved in his arrest.”
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, “We just basically don’t have any information on this individual.”
But he declined to say whether other U.S. government agencies might have knowledge of Amiri’s whereabouts.
The CIA declined to comment.
Unconfirmed reports have swirled that Amiri is connected to Iran’s newly disclosed uranium-enrichment site near Qom.
