The White House has appealed to Iran to help locate former FBI agent Robert Levinson saying 'his case remains a priority for the US government.'
The call came after Levinson's family met with the State Department and the FBI to mark the 1,000th day of his alleged disappearance from Iran's Kish Island in 2007, Press TV reported.
US officials say Levinson is a retired FBI agent who traveled to Kish Island to investigate cigarette counterfeiting in the region and went missing on March 9, 2007.
"The United States calls on the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to assist in providing any information on Mr. Levinson's whereabouts and in ensuring his prompt and safe return to his family," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in the statement.
"While Iranian authorities promised to share information about their investigation, that promise has yet to be fulfilled," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
``We continue to call on Iran to stand by its commitment of providing full details,'' Clinton said, adding that the case ``remains a priority for the United States, as does resolving the cases of other American citizens who are unjustly detained in Iran.''
Levinson's wife Christine and their son Daniel visited Iran last December, clinging to the hope that they would find Levinson with the help of Iranian officials.
The Iranian police force and foreign ministry promised Levinson's family and the White House to help in finding the former FBI agent, but asserted that they have no information about Levinson or his whereabouts.
"We have no one with such a name in our custody," Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said on February 17.
The remarks by US officials comes as , Iran's RahPouyan-e-DadGostar NGO is in the process of logging a legal complaint against the US over its violation of the rights of Iranian detainees, who are illegally being held in custody.
According to the rights group, some of these Iranian nationals have been incarcerated on false charges or have been abducted and subjected to 'extraordinary rendition', while the US is seeking to extradite some others.
Baktash Fatahi, Shahrzad Amir-Qolikhani, Ali Amir-Nazmi, and Hassan Saeed-Keshari, have all been arrested in the US.
Earlier an Iranian intelligent official who was speaking on condition of anonymity"> accused
the CIA, Mossad, and the British MI6 of a joint plot by kidnapping and torturing Alireza Asgari, one of the country's former military officials, in a bid to fabricate unfounded charges against Tehran.