It has been reported that Bishop John Chane of the Diocese of Washington and three other Americans are in Tehran for talks that they hope will facilitate the release of two American hikers and lead to better relations between the U. S. and Iran.
On Friday Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP in Baghdad that his nation’s leaders, including the president and prime minister, have repeatedly called on Iran to release free the hikers.
Meanwhile Iranian media reported that four US “religious leaders” — two Muslims and two Christians — are visiting Tehran have pleaded with Ahmadinejad for the release of the two American hikers.
The clerics “voiced hope that their request for the release of the two Americans materialises, so that they could effectively work for the release of Iranians imprisoned there upon their return to America,” the reports said.
Through the pictures available to the media they were identified as Nihad Awad, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and its Chairman Larry Shaw.
The other two seen in the pictures were Bishop John Bryson Chane of the Episcopal Church in Washington and Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick of the Roman Catholic Church.