Iran to aid search for missing American

WASHINGTON —  Iran said Wednesday that it would look into the disappearance of a former FBI agent, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

Iran replied to a U.S. request for information or help and asked for additional details about the missing man’s travel itinerary, Casey said.

The United States and Iran have no diplomatic relations, but the governments do exchange information through neutral Swiss diplomats in Tehran.

“We’ll see if they come up with anything, but they certainly didn’t have any specific information” about the man, Casey said.

The retired agent has been identified as Robert Levinson, 59, of Coral Springs, Fla.

He was last heard from around March 11 while in a coastal area of southern Iran, where he was working for an independent filmmaker, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the situation. Levinson reportedly was near or on Kish Island, a Persian Gulf resort area.

Iran’s response Wednesday came hours before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad released 15 British sailors and marines who were being held in the country.

The U.S. says there is no connection between the British naval personnel and the case of the missing American, and no connection to other recent incidents involving Iranians detained by U.S. or Iraqi authorities.

“There isn’t, in our mind and I don’t think in anyone else’s, any connection between an individual, private American citizen whose whereabouts are unknown, and who went missing in early March, and any of the rest of this stuff,” Casey said.