伊朗扣押3名美国游客

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Three Americans, all of them tourists who were on a hike are being held tonight in Iran, they were arrested after crossing the border into Iran from Iraq’s Kurdistan region. They had entered Kurdistan from Turkey. Well our chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel is tonight with the latest on this developing situation, Richard, what do we know?

Good evening, Lester, from downtown Istanbul, this appears to have been a camping trip gone wrong, a senior Kurdish official told NBC News that the Americans entered northern Iraq into the region of Kurdistan which is semiautonomous relatively stable. On Tuesday, some tourists do go to Kurdistan, it's not exactly a popular destination, they stayed in Kurdistan for a few days mostly staying in hotels, and then on Friday, they were camping right along the Iranian border, it's a beautiful area full of mountains, they were near a waterfall and that is when they crossed into Iran, according to Iranian officials, and were quickly surrounded by the Iranian security and remained in detention. The US State Department has asked for some clarifications and is starting to investigate, asking Switzerland which represents US interests in Iran to investigate.

"We know they are being detained and not arrested necessarily, are any charges being discussed by the Iranians?”

What we’ve been hearing from / Iranian media is that they are being charged with entering Iran illegally. But this is a highly sensitive time, it couldn’t have happened perhaps at a worse time for Americans to be caught in the area suspicious in Iran or right along the border with Iran. For the last six weeks there has been unrest on the streets of Tehran and in several other cities. And the Iranian government blames outsiders for instigating this unrest.

And there are trials now getting underway for some of those caught up in the protest. Are there or not?

In fact there was a trial that began today for a hundred opposition leaders and protesters who were put on trial. They are being charged with working with foreign governments to try and undermine the credibility of the Iranian election which reelected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Opposition leaders say this is nothing more than a show trial, and say that the defendants have not had adequate access to lawyers or even been presented with specific charges. Lester.

All right, Richard Engel in Istanbul tonight, Richard, thank you.