Iranian authorities have released Ali Shakeri, an Iranian-American peace activist who had been detained for months on suspicion of harming national security. Shakeri is the last Iranian-American to be freed from among a total of four who were taken into custody or prevented from leaving Iran earlier this year.

Tehran has freed an Iranian-American man, Kian Tajbakhsh, who was jailed in May on charges of acting against Iran's national security. Tajbakhsh is a social scientist, specializing in urban planning, who was working in Tehran as a consultant for the Open Society Institute, a nongovernmental organization created by U.S. financier and philanthropist George Soros.

The United States has rejected an Iranian suggestion to hold higher-level talks on the security situation in Iraq. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he does not see talks between the U.S. and Iran at the level of deputy foreign minister at this time. McCormack said the two sides have already established a diplomatic channel between their ambassadors in Iraq.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Gholamhussein Mohseni-Ejei says authorities in Tehran have detained several people for having ties with two Iranian-Americans arrested in May.

The United States says it is "appalled" at Tehran's treatment of two detained Iranian-Americans. Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh were shown on Iranian television on July 16 in the first footage since they were detained in May on charges of acting against national security.

The Woodrow Wilson Center says any purported "confessions" by Iranian-American Haleh Esfandiari, a scholar detained in Iran, have "no legitimacy."

Iranian state-run television has shown footage of two Iranian-Americans detained in Tehran on charges of acting against national security.

The U.S. State Department has dismissed Iran's claim that it has new evidence against jailed U.S.-Iranian scholars Kian Tajbakhsh and Haleh Esfandiari.

Iran reportedly is investigating a fourth U.S.-Iranian citizen on security-related accusations. Reports from Tehran say the public prosecutor has launched the investigation of peace activist Ali Shakeri.

The House of Representatives has approved resolutions on Iran and the situation in Darfur. One calls on the government in Tehran to release dual Iranian-American citizens it is holding, the other urges China to do more to pressure the government of Sudan to end violence in Darfur.

Iran accused U.S. President George W. Bush of interfering in Iranian internal affairs because of his demand for the release of four Iranian-Americans being held in Iran.

The head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, has defended his country's detention and investigation of several Iranian-Americans.