TEHRAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th January, 2021) Iran considers the recent arrest of its high-profile political scientist Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi by the US authorities to be hostage taking, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Wednesday, expressing hope that the US administration under Joe Biden will abandon the practice.
Afrasiabi was arrested on Monday at his home in the US city of Watertown and charged with being an unregistered secret agent the next day. According to the US Department of Justice, Afrasiabi was secretly employed by the Iranian government and paid by Iranian diplomats assigned to the country's mission at the UN around 2007 to the present.
"The US actions are an open hostage-taking of an Iranian citizen. Unfortunately, the US is addicted to such measures and, under any pretext, is taking hostages [of Iranian citizens]. We hope the new US government distances itself from the approach of [outgoing President Donald] Trump's government," Khatibzadeh told the ISNA news agency.
The spokesman also called charges against the professor groundless.
Tehran had a fraught relationship with Washington during the Trump administration due to the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force, whom Washington accused of controlling Shiite militias in the country.
