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Tehran: Envoy release irrelevant with US-Iran talks

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-12 23:02

TEHRAN: Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said on Sunday that there is no link between the release of Iranian diplomats and the US-Iran direct talks, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Crowds hold Iranian officials, detained by the US military in Iraq, on their shoulders as they arrive in Tehran's Mehrabad airport July 12, 2009. [Agencies]

"The measure (of releasing diplomats) has nothing to do with direct talks between Iran and the United States and is not of prime importance in diplomatic ties between the two sides," Qashqavi was quoted as saying.

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The freedom of the abducted Iranian diplomats were in line with the security pact signed by Iraq and the US, he said in the welcoming ceremony for the five Iranians.

Five Iranians, including three diplomats, who were freed by the US military after more than two years in detention, arrived in Tehran on Sunday, local English-language Press TV reported.

The Iranians arrived in Tehran's Mehrabad Airport and were welcomed by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and their family members.

"US kidnapping of Iranian diplomats was an inhuman act," Mottaki told reporters in the airport, adding that "we reserve the right to legally follow up this kidnapping case."

On January 11, 2007, the US troops raided the Iranian Liaison Office in Iraq's Kurdish city of Arbil, capturing five mid-level diplomats, two of whom were later released, Press TV said.

Two other Iranians kidnapped elsewhere in Iraq by the US troops later joined the three diplomats in detention, said the report.

The US military said the Iranian Liaison Office was used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a local headquarters. However, both Iranian and Kurdish autonomous region officials denied the accusation, insisting that the target was a diplomatic mission.