Wife of US academic held by Iran begs Trump for help

BEIJING: The Chinese wife of a US academic serving a 10-year term in Iran on espionage charges pleaded for help from the White House Friday after Tehran issued fresh accusations against her husband.

Hua Qu said for the last year and a half she has only been able to speak with her husband Xiyue Wang for a few minutes a week as he languishes in an Iranian prison.

The couple has a four-yearold son and lives in New Jersey, where Wang is a doctoral candidate in history at Princeton University.

“My young family should not be the bearer of the burden of ties between the US and Iran. If President (Donald) Trump and the White House don’t rescue him, there is nobody who can,” Qu told AFP. “We cannot wait forever.” Wang, a Chinese-born US citizen, was conducting archival research on Iran’s Qajar dynasty when he was imprisoned in August 2016.

In July, he was convicted for “collaborating with foreign governments” under the guise of research, according to the Mizan Online News Agency, which is close to Tehran’s judiciary.

On Sunday, Iranian state TV accused Wang, 36, of attempting to remove some 4,500 documents from the country.

Princeton called the accusations “false and misleading”, saying Wang had obtained all the official paperwork and approvals necessary for his research.

Qu said her husband has become “a political pawn, a bargaining chip” used by the Iranians as leverage against the US as Trump mulls scrapping the Iran nuclear deal, a 2015 accord that curbed Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. — AFP

My young family should not be the bearer of the burden of ties between the US and Iran. If President (Donald) Trump and the White House don’t rescue him, there is nobody who can. — Hua Qu, wife of US academic Xiyue Wang