TEHRAN, Iran — A Washington Post journalist detained in Iran for months has been indicted and will stand trial, Iran’s state news agency reported Wednesday, without elaborating on what charges he faced.
The report by the official IRNA news agency came the same day as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif before talks with world powers resume over the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear program.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the two events were connected, although Zarif earlier said he hoped the case against reporter Jason Rezaian could be “resolved.”
“We will have to wait for the judiciary to move forward, but we will try to provide all the humanitarian assistance that we could,” Zarif said in Geneva. “We hope that this issue could be resolved, but unfortunately there are judicial issues involved, which the judiciary has to deal with.”
IRNA quoted Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi saying Rezaian, the newspaper’s bureau chief in Tehran since 2012, had been indicted. He was charged last month, but the bill of indictment clears the way for trial.
The IRNA report did not disclose what charges Rezaian, an Iranian-American who holds dual citizenship, faces, nor when his trial would begin. However, the report says he will stand trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court, which mostly hears cases involving security offenses.
The newspaper and Rezaian’s mother have called for his release.
“We still do not know what charges the Iranian authorities have brought against our correspondent Jason Rezaian, but we hope the referral of his case to a Revolutionary Court represents a step forward toward Jason’s prompt release,” said a statement from Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post. “This step gives Iran’s judiciary an opportunity to demonstrate its fairness and independence by determining that the charges are baseless. We call on Iran to make these charges public, to allow Jason access to a lawyer and to bring a swift and just resolution of a six-month-long nightmare that has been extremely difficult for Jason and his family.”
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Wednesday that the U.S. was aware of the Iranian press reports and was seeking further information.
