Post date: Jan 08, 2011 3:15:17 PM
Iranian border police confirm the arrest of a U.S. woman at the Jolfa border on espionage charges, state media reports.
WEBSITE (JANUARY 8, 2011) REUTERS/FARS - Iranian border police confirmed on Saturday (January 8) they had arrested an American woman on suspicion of spying for the United States, the semi-official Fars news agency said , two days after state-run TV denied a similar story.
Fars quoted deputy commander of state border police Ahmad Geravand as saying: "The female American spy was arrested at the Jolfa border (with Armenia).The ISNA news agency quoted him as saying: "We arrested a woman who was on a mission for the Americans to film the borders with equipment, so we arrested her at the Jolfa border and she was then handed to the intelligence ministry."
The reports said the arrest took place on Wednesday (January 5).
Iranian English speaking State TV showed computer-generated images of the area where the arrest is reported to have taken place.
The news comes as Tehran and Washington remain locked in a long-running dispute over Iran's nuclear programme. The two countries have had no diplomatic relations since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
On Thursday (January 6), one daily newspaper said a 55-year-old U.S. woman identified as Hall Talayan had been arrested trying to cross the border without a visa. Iran's Arabic language television al-Alam described the report as false.
The most recent reports gave Talayan's age as 34.
Three Americans, two men and a woman, were arrested in July 2009 near the Iran-Iraq border on suspicion of spying.
The woman, Sarah Shourd, was released on bail a of 500,000 U.S. dollars in September and returned to the United States. She has said the three of them strayed across the border while hiking in Iraq.
Her two companions remain in jail awaiting trial, which was postponed in November due to Shourd's absence.