Swiss Diplomat Seeks Information on U.S. Hikers Held in Iran

Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. State Department said the Swiss ambassador is working to obtain information on three U.S. citizens arrested in Iran after they were caught near the country’s western border.

The three were hiking in the mountains near the Iranian border, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. It identified them as Shane Bower, Sara Short and Joshua Steel, citing Beshro Ahmed, media adviser for the General Security Department in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. Shaun Gabriel Maxwell, a member of the group who wasn’t with them at the time, called the U.S. Embassy in Iraq after his friends called him to say they had been arrested.

The State Department is assisting the families of the three people arrested and provided the “appropriate consular assistance” to the fourth American, said Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman.

“Out of respect for the privacy of these individuals, we are unable to provide further detail at this time,” Wood said today in an e-mailed statement.

The group arrived at the Ahmed Awa resort on July 30 and disregarded advice from Kurdish tourist police not to go climbing near Iranian border, Ahmed told AFP.

“On Friday, they went close to the mountains, and climbed them,” AFP cited Ahmed as saying. “Then they called their friend in the hotel telling him that they were arrested by Iranian forces at the border.”

Ahmed Awa is about 55 miles northeast of Sulaimaniyah, AFP said. The four hikers had been in Syria and Turkey before crossing into Kurdistan, AFP reported, citing Ahmed.