The statement came in response to an AFP query about journalist Reza Valizadeh, who previously worked for US-funded Radio Farda, amid media reports he had been held in Iran for weeks.
“We are working with our Swiss partners who serve as the protecting power for the US in Iran to gather more information about this case,” said the statement.
The US and Iran severed diplomatic relations in 1980. The relationship has been particularly fraught since US ally Israel launched an offensive against Tehran-backed armed groups in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere last year – including exchanging strikes with Iran itself.
Iran’s mission to the UN did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment on Valizadeh’s reported detention.
In its statement, the US state department said that “Iran routinely imprisons US citizens and other countries’ citizens unjustly for political purposes,” a practice it said is “cruel and contrary to international law.”
It renewed its warning for US citizens not to travel to Iran “for any reason.”
Radio Farda is the Persian-language branch of US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Valizadeh had previously freelanced and also worked for Radio France.
A report on the RFE/RL website said Valizadeh was arrested in late September in Tehran. It said he left a job on the Radio Farda staff in November 2022.
The report said Valizadeh had travelled to Tehran on March 16, then four months later posted on X that he had “unfinished negotiations” with the intelligence branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
RFE/RL said it had no official confirmation of the charges against Valizadeh, but said it was “profoundly concerned about the continued arrest, harassment and threats against media professionals by the Iranian regime.”
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent nonprofit, said last month that Valizadeh had been detained, without access to a lawyer, in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran.
The CPJ called on Iran to “immediately release” Valizadeh and drop any charges against him.