AGL 38.30 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (0.21%)
AIRLINK 132.01 Increased By ▲ 3.04 (2.36%)
BOP 8.68 Increased By ▲ 0.83 (10.57%)
CNERGY 4.73 Increased By ▲ 0.07 (1.5%)
DCL 8.50 Increased By ▲ 0.18 (2.16%)
DFML 38.50 Decreased By ▼ -0.44 (-1.13%)
DGKC 84.30 Increased By ▲ 2.36 (2.88%)
FCCL 34.60 Increased By ▲ 1.18 (3.53%)
FFBL 76.55 Increased By ▲ 0.84 (1.11%)
FFL 12.80 Decreased By ▼ -0.02 (-0.16%)
HUBC 110.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.36 (-0.33%)
HUMNL 14.35 Increased By ▲ 0.34 (2.43%)
KEL 5.38 Increased By ▲ 0.23 (4.47%)
KOSM 7.80 Increased By ▲ 0.13 (1.69%)
MLCF 40.60 Increased By ▲ 0.80 (2.01%)
NBP 70.00 Decreased By ▼ -2.32 (-3.21%)
OGDC 190.75 Increased By ▲ 2.46 (1.31%)
PAEL 25.96 Increased By ▲ 0.33 (1.29%)
PIBTL 7.45 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (1.09%)
PPL 156.20 Increased By ▲ 3.53 (2.31%)
PRL 25.82 Increased By ▲ 0.43 (1.69%)
PTC 18.72 Increased By ▲ 1.02 (5.76%)
SEARL 82.79 Increased By ▲ 0.37 (0.45%)
TELE 7.80 Increased By ▲ 0.21 (2.77%)
TOMCL 32.84 Increased By ▲ 0.27 (0.83%)
TPLP 8.36 Decreased By ▼ -0.06 (-0.71%)
TREET 17.15 Increased By ▲ 0.37 (2.21%)
TRG 56.05 Increased By ▲ 0.01 (0.02%)
UNITY 28.83 Increased By ▲ 0.05 (0.17%)
WTL 1.34 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.74%)
BR100 10,707 Increased By 48.2 (0.45%)
BR30 31,703 Increased By 372 (1.19%)
KSE100 99,629 Increased By 359.3 (0.36%)
KSE30 31,040 Increased By 7.8 (0.03%)

US President George W. Bush on Friday strongly condemned Tehran's detention of several US-Iranian dual nationals and called for their immediate and unconditional release.
"I strongly condemn their detention at the hands of Iranian authorities. They should be freed immediately and unconditionally," Bush said in a statement.
Journalist Parnaz Azima and academics Haleh Esfandiari, Kian Tajbakhsh, and Ali Shakeri were "being held against their will by the Iranian regime," he said. US and Iranian officials have said the three academics are being held in Iran on spying charges and that the journalist faced similar allegations but had not been arrested.
"These individuals have dedicated themselves to building bridges between the American and Iranian people, a goal the Iranian regime claims to support," Bush said. "Their presence in Iran - to visit their parents or to conduct humanitarian work - poses no threat," he said. "Indeed, their activities are typical of the abiding ties that Iranian-Americans have with their land of origin."
All four of the targeted dual nationals had been in Iran on private visits. Iran does not recognise dual nationality of its citizens and the State Department said it has ignored US requests for consular access to the four. The United States has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since shortly after the Islamic revolution in 1979.
Esfandiari heads the Middle East program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She returned to Iran in December to visit her ailing, 93-year-old mother, and has been jailed in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
Tajbakhsh is an expert in urban planning who has taught in the United States and Iran and has worked for the World Bank as well as the Open Society Institute of US billionaire George Soros.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2007

Comments

Comments are closed.