The family of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran after being abducted in 2007, says it is encouraged by the Biden administration’s latest vow to press Tehran for answers on his fate, but also wants U.S. officials to do more than make public appeals for Iranian authorities to act.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke by phone with Levinson’s family on Tuesday, the 14th anniversary of his abduction and disappearance on Iran’s Kish Island.
U.S. officials and family members said last year that they believed Levinson, who was 58 when he went missing, later died in captivity.
“We were really encouraged by our conversation with Secretary of State Blinken,” David Levinson, one of Robert Levinson’s seven adult children, said in a VOA Persian interview from his home in Orlando on Tuesday.
“He was very kind to our family, expressed his sympathies with us, and also reaffirmed his commitment and the Biden administration's commitment that they are going to work to get my father home,” he said.
In a statement that Blinken released after his call with the Levinson family, he said the U.S. “call(s) on the Iranian government to provide credible answers to what happened to Bob Levinson and to immediately and safely release all U.S. citizens who are unjustly held captive in Iran.”
Blinken also said Iran’s “abhorrent act of unjust detentions for political gain must cease immediately.”
In other statements issued Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration “will not relent until all of our citizens who continue to be wrongfully detained in Iran and around the world are returned to their families.”
The FBI’s Washington Field Office said it and its interagency partners “remain resolute in our efforts to investigate and seek the truth of what happened to Bob.”
Levinson disappeared March 9, 2007, while visiting Kish Island as a private investigator. He had retired from a 22-year career with the FBI nine years earlier. In 2013, several U.S. news outlets reported that he had been on a rogue CIA intelligence mission, a claim that U.S. authorities have not confirmed.
Iranian officials have denied responsibility for Levinson’s disappearance and asserted that he left Iran many years ago.
Speaking to VOA, David Levinson said family members told Blinken his father’s return home “must be a part of negotiations and any future conversations” with Iran.
The Biden administration has said it is ready to join its European partners in starting low-level talks with Iran aimed at reviving a 2015 deal that offered Tehran sanctions relief in return for constraints on the Iranian nuclear program.
Former President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, saying the agreement approved by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, was not tough enough on Iran. Tehran retaliated a year later by intensifying its nuclear work in violation of the deal’s constraints.
The U.S. and its allies have said those constraints are needed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, a goal that Tehran denies having.
Iranian officials have rejected the U.S. offer of low-level multilateral talks, saying Biden first must remove all U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran by Trump.
“One thing coming out of the call with Secretary Blinken was an invitation to continue to collaborate, provide feedback and weigh in on negotiations,” Levinson said.
While welcoming the communication with U.S. officials, Levinson said his family believed the Biden administration’s public statements about his father were not enough.
"Statements of concern, statements of ‘Iran must do the right thing’ — those fall flat,” he said. “Iran does not respond to those statements. They do not respond to gestures of goodwill. They respond to strength, and they respond to pressure.”
In a Tuesday press briefing, State Department spokesman Ned Price said U.S. officials would “continue to use every tool in our disposal ... to find out all we can about what happened to Mr. Levinson and to try and provide those answers to the family.”
He said channels of communication with Iran were one such tool, and added, without elaboration, “We also have other tools and means at our disposal to try and find those answers.”
In the first public U.S. action against Iran related to the Levinson case, the former Trump administration imposed sanctions in December on two Iranian intelligence agents whom it identified as directly responsible for his abduction and probable death.
"There are many people who have had a hand in my father's unjust detention and capture,” David Levinson said. “They should face justice and be held accountable for what they have done and the horror that they have brought onto our family and countless others.”
The FBI said it would “continue its investigation to identify all Iranian officials involved in Bob’s abduction.”
Four Iranian American dual nationals remain jailed or barred from leaving Iran for what their supporters describe as bogus charges — businessman Siamak Namazi, who was arrested in October 2015; his father and former U.N. official Baquer Namazi, who was detained in February 2016 and has been on a medical furlough from prison since 2018; Morad Tahbaz, an environmentalist who was arrested in January 2018; and businessman Emad Sharghi, whose detention in December 2020 was first reported in January.
This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.
