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 Siamak Namazi was detained by Iranian authorities in mid-October,
according to a source briefed on the matter who requested anonymity.
He had been traveling in Iran, where his parents live, to visit
family and was barred from leaving the country in July, the source
said.
The source said Namazi had not been in Iran on business.
Namazi was detained by the intelligence service of Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps and is currently being held in solitary
confinement in Evin prison, the source told Reuters.
Namazi had been regularly called in for interrogation between July
and the time he was detained, the source also disclosed.
"We're aware of recent reports of the possible arrest in Iran of a
U.S. citizen," a senior Obama administration official said. "We're
looking into these reports and don't have anything further to
provide at this time."
Namazi lives in Dubai and works as the head of strategic planning
for Crescent Petroleum, an oil and gas company in the United Arab
Emirates. He previously was chief executive of Atieh Bahar
Consulting, a private marketing and strategic consulting firm in
Iran.
Namazi, well known among Iran policy experts, attended university in
the United States and the United Kingdom and previously worked at
think tanks and institutions in Washington, D.C. In 2007, he was
chosen as a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum.
Namazi's career has revolved to a great extent around the changing
business and diplomatic ties between the United States and Iran. In
2013, he wrote an editorial in the New York Times criticizing U.S.
and European sanctions for blocking the import of critical medicines
into Iran.
His arrest makes him the fourth Iranian-American currently detained
in Iran. An reporter for the Washington Post, Jason Rezaian, was
convicted this month after being arrested in July 2014 and accused
of espionage. Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine, was jailed by Iran
on spying charges in 2011. And Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-American
Christian pastor, was sentenced to eight years in jail in 2013.
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The detentions have been an obstacle to thawing U.S.-Iran relations,
which improved during the negotiation of a historic July nuclear
deal. Iran agreed with world powers to limit its nuclear program in
return for the lifting of sanctions.
The Wall Street Journal, which earlier reported the news of Namazi's
arrest, said that in recent weeks Iranian business officials with
ties to foreign companies had been held, interrogated and warned
against wading into economic monopolies controlled by the
Revolutionary Guard.
Friends of Namazi told the Journal that Iranian intelligence agents
had ransacked his family home, seized his computer and then
conducted cyber attacks on some of his email contacts.
Earlier this month, Secretary of State John Kerry defended the U.S.
decision not to make the release of Iranian-Americans a condition
for the nuclear agreement with Iran, but he called on Iran to
release the men and drop all charges against them.
The deal is favored by more moderate factions in Iran but is opposed
by hardliners, who control Iran's judiciary and security apparatus
and are seen by Iran experts as being behind the detentions.
(Reporting by Washington bureau; Editing by Mark Bendeich)
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