An Iranian American Was Arrested in Iran, U.S. Confirms

Middle East|U.S. Confirms Reports That Iran Arrested an Iranian-American Citizen

The State Department confirmed that it was looking into reports that an Iranian-American citizen had been arrested in Iran. The news comes amid renewed tensions between Iran, which has long used Western detainees for leverage, and the United States, Israel’s biggest ally, following Israeli airstrikes on Iran last month.

“We are aware of reports that this dual U.S.-Iranian citizen has been arrested in Iran,” a State Department spokesperson wrote on Sunday in an email in response to questions from The New York Times about Reza Valizadeh, an Iranian-American journalist who rights groups said last month had been arrested and was being held in a Tehran prison without access to a lawyer. The State Department did not respond to a follow-up email asking if Mr. Valizadeh was the dual citizen being detained.

The reports come amid increasingly heated rhetoric from Iranian leaders in the past few days, after the country’s leadership initially tried to minimize the effectiveness of the Israeli strikes on Iranian air-defense systems last month. On Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, threatened a “crushing response” to Israel and the United States.

They also coincide with the 45th anniversary of the hostage crisis, when Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, in response to perceived U.S. meddling in the country’s politics, and held more than 50 Americans as hostages for 444 days.

Rights groups said last month that Mr. Valizadeh was arrested around September and was being detained in Evin Prison, one of Iran’s most notorious detention centers.

Mr. Valizadeh once worked for Radio Farda, a Persian-language outlet that is part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the U.S. government. He left the organization in November 2022, RFE/RL said in a text message to The Times on Sunday.