Tehran: Iran said on Tuesday it will use legal channels to secure the release of its nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who in a video clip screened on Iranian television channels claimed he was kidnapped by US agents.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said that the film confirmed Tehran's claims that Amiri was "kidnapped by US and Saudi intelligence services."
In the clip, the man identified by the IRIB channel as Amiri, said he was now "in the city of Tucson, Arizona" in the United States and that he had been kidnapped by US agents en route to Saudi Arabia in June 2009.
Amiri stated that his abduction was intended to mount political pressure on the Iranian government.
The television said Iranian intelligence services obtained the film "by special methods" without elaborating.
"These are inhumane actions and violate international laws," Mehmanparast said at his weekly press conference.
"We won't allow this to happen to our nationals and through legal channels we will pursue the issue."
ABC news in the United States reported in March that Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s who disappeared in June 2009 after arriving in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage, had defected and was working with the CIA.
Iranian officials have long maintained that Amiri was abducted from Saudi Arabia by US agents while on pilgrimage to the Muslim holy places.
The ABC report said that US agents described the defection as "an intelligence coup" in efforts to undermine Iran's controversial nuclear programme.
Amiri's disappearance "was part of a long-planned CIA operation to get him to defect," ABC reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in April that "existing evidence" indicates Amiri is in the United States.
The United States has pressed hard for tougher international efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear programme, amid Western suspicions it is cover for a weapons drive.
Tehran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and designed to meet medical research and domestic energy needs.
