Tehran: An Iranian nuclear scientist who went missing in Saudi Arabia has landed up in a US jail, Mehr news agency said Tuesday quoting a senior official, as Tehran urged Western powers to show they can be trusted.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told Mehr that the scientist, Shahram Amiri, was handed over to US officials by Saudi Arabia and is one of 11 Iranians being held in US jails.
"Iran`s nuclear scientist who had gone to hajj in Saudi Arabia, was handed over by Riyadh to Washington," Mehmanparast said.
His statement was the first acknowledgement by Tehran that Amiri was a nuclear scientist.
Iranian officials have previously said Amiri went missing in Saudi Arabia soon after he landed there as a pilgrim earlier this year.
Iranian media have also previously reported that US Central Intelligence Agency of being involved in his disappearance.
Amiri left for Saudi Arabia on May 31 and on his arrival was "questioned by Saudi agents at the airport for a longer time than other pilgrims," Iran`s hardline Javan newspaper said in October.
"Three days later when he left his hotel in Medina, he never returned," the report said, adding that Amiri was a researcher at Tehran`s Malek-Ashtar University of Technology.
The newspaper quoted his wife as saying he was "only a researcher and did not hold any government post."
Several regional Arabic newspapers had speculated that Amiri was a nuclear scientist and he was involved in building Iran`s second uranium enrichment plant near the Shiite holy city of Qom.
Tehran had until now evaded the question of Amiri`s occupation although it has in the past accused Washington of having a hand in his disappearance.
Mehmanparast, meanwhile, told a media conference earlier Tuesday that Iran has no faith in world powers when it comes to resolving a dispute over a nuclear fuel deal.
"We never said we will not do this (nuclear fuel deal)," Mehmanparast said when asked if Iran was still weighing up whether to subscribe to the deal brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
World powers had backed the IAEA proposal under which Iran would send most of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France for conversion into nuclear fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.
But Iran rejected the proposal last month, insisting it wanted to hand over its LEU at the same time it receives the 20 percent enriched uranium, and that the handover must take place simultaneously inside Iran.
Bureau Report
