TEHRAN – Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Friday that France’s call for the release of a detained Iranian scholar was interference in Iran’s internal affairs and would not help resolve the issue.

France’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday demanded Iran release dual national Fariba Adelkhah, a senior research fellow at Sciences Po University in Paris, who was arrested earlier this year.

“It is vital and urgent for the Iranian authorities to be transparent in this case as well as for all cases of foreign nationals arrested in Iran,” French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll told reporters in a daily online briefing, Reuters reported.

She said France has repeatedly demanded consolatory access to Adelkhah and her release from prison, but Iranian officials rejected the request based on her Iranian nationality, and only allowed her family to meet her a few times.

Mousavi said France’s interference in the case was irrelevant and added that “this will not only fail to help resolve the issue, but rather make the legal process more complicated,” according to IRNA.

Iran does not recognize dual nationality, and therefore, “Mrs. Adelkhah is an Iranian national and enjoys all the citizenship rights of Iranian nationals,” he said.

Adelkhah, 60-year-old anthropologist and researcher at Sciences Po's Center for International Studies (CERI) in Paris, was reportedly arrested in June on charge of espionage.

MH/PA