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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Africa Europe Latin America Middle East North America Search Search: Iraq asks Iran about 3 detained Americans By KIM GAMEL,Associated Press Writer AP - Sunday, August 9 BAGHDAD - Iraq has appealed to Iran for information about the detention of three Americans who crossed the border while hiking in the Kurdish north, the foreign minister said Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT The request came as the three entered their second week in captivity facing the possibility of an investigation on spying charges despite the insistence of U.S. and Kurdish authorities that they accidentally went astray. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he raised the issue Thursday during a meeting with Iran's ambassador to Iraq. "He did confirm that they have been arrested for entering the country without proper visas and they are now being interviewed to determine more details," Zebari told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. The ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, promised to pass the request for more information to his government, Zebari said. Iranian lawmakers were scheduled to discuss the case Sunday during the weekly meeting of parliament's foreign policy committee, according to Press TV, the English language Iranian state television. "We will discuss the additional information (handed to us) and the details of the case," said Hossein Sobhaninia, the deputy chair of the commission, in a report on the channel's Web site. Iranian border guards detained freelance journalist Shane Bauer, Sara Shourd and Josh Fattal on July 31 while they were hiking near a waterfall on a mountain in Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region. Shon Meckfessel, a companion who had skipped the outing because he was ill, has said the three had set up camp near a place called Ahmed Awa, which is famous for a beautiful waterfall, but later called to tell him they had been detained and urge him to call the U.S. Embassy. A prominent Iranian lawmaker and member of parliament's National Security Committee, however, has rejected the suggestion the Americans were tourists and said authorities were investigating whether to charge them with espionage. "Surely we can say that they came as spies," Mohammad Karim Abedi, a hard-line lawmaker said earlier this week on Iran's state-run Al-Alam TV. "The concerned authorities will decide whether they were spies or not. If it is proven that they were spies, the necessary legal procedures will be sought against them." He compared the matter with a case involving British military personnel seized by Iran in March 2007 after Tehran said they had entered Iranian waters from Iraqi territory. The 15 sailors and marines were held for nearly two weeks, and some were paraded on Iranian television to deliver supposed confessions of trespassing. American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi was convicted of espionage before being released on an appeal in May. The U.S. State Department has dismissed the spying allegations. The case is the latest source of friction between Washington and Tehran, which are locked in bitter dispute over Iran's nuclear program. The two countries have had no diplomatic ties since 1979 when militant students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took Americans hostage for 444 days. The detentions also have put Iraq in an uncomfortable position because it needs to balance the interests of its two main allies, the United States and Iran. Zebari said the Iranian ambassador didn't mention the spying charges. The Iraqis felt compelled to raise the issue because the Americans had crossed the border from their territory, he added. Iran and Iraq share an 800 mile (1,280 kilometer) border over which there have been long-standing disagreements. The frontier is poorly marked, particularly in the mountainous Kurdish region. A senior Kurdish official said Saturday that the regional Interior Minister Kerim Sinjari also has met with the Iranian consul in Irbil to request more information about the detentions. "We feel that we are responsible for these three Americans because they crossed to Iran via our territories. We do believe that they did so unintentionally and mistakenly," said the official, Falah Mustafa. "We think the Iranian side will answer us within two days. Moreover, we are optimistic that the Islamic Republic of Iran will release them within a short time." The Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which represents U.S. interests, has been trying to learn more about the status of the Americans through its contacts with the Iranian Foreign Ministry. The Kurdish region has not faced the bloodshed that plagued the rest of the country following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, leading foreigners to feel more secure traveling in the area without bodyguards. Attacks continue elsewhere in Iraq, although the overall level of violence has declined sharply. The death toll climbed to 44 in Friday's suicide truck bomb attack on the northern outskirts of Mosul. The explosion left a 16-foot (5-meter) crater, reducing a Shiite mosque and several nearby houses to rubble. __ Associated Press Writer Yahya Barzanji in Irbil contributed to this report. 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