US: No talks with Iran on prisoner swap

"We have not entered into any discussion with Iran about an exchange," National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer told AFP on Tuesday.

In an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on Tuesday, President Ahmadinejad responded to a question about the fate of the three detained US hikers, saying talks are underway between Tehran and Washington about exchanging prisoners.

"They (hikers) had trespassed on our border illegally. We found evidence that they intentionally entered our country," Ahmadinejad said.

"They (US agents) have kidnapped our citizens from other countries for nothing and delivered them to the US. They have sentenced our citizens in the US," he added.

"This is very bad…There are talks whether it is possible to do an exchange" of prisoners, he said.

The three American citizens — Shane Michael Bauer, Joshua Felix Fattal, and Sarah Emily Shourd — were arrested on July 31 after straying across the border from Iraq's Kurdistan region. They were later charged with espionage by Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi.

Among the 11 Iranians that Tehran says are "illegally" detained in the United States is nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri who went missing in Saudi Arabia while on pilgrimage to Mecca in June 2009.

In December, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said Tehran had information that authorities in Riyadh had delivered Amiri to the United States.

He added that Amiri is among eleven Iranian nationals held in detention in US prisons.

Another Iranian national, Amir-Hossein Ardebili, was abducted in Georgia in October 2007 and handed over to the US government in January 2008.

A US District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, handed out a five-year term to Ardebili based on prosecutor's claim that he had "secretly pleaded guilty" to arms smuggling and weapons export charges.

According to claims made by US prosecutors, Ardebili had to face trial for seeking to acquire military equipment, such as aircraft parts and night vision devices, for Iran.

This is while the purchase of parts for F-4 fighter planes through a mediator is not defined as a criminal offense in international law.

Additionally, international regulations do not allow the US government to abduct Iranian nationals from other countries based on these charges.

Alireza Asgari, Shahram Amiri, and Iran's former ambassador to Jordan, Nosratollah Tajik, are among the other victims.

Asgari was abducted in Turkey in December 9, 2007.

/Press TV/