Iran Says It Will Let Seib Leave Today

Iran announced Wednesday that it will free Wall Street Journal reporter Gerald F. Seib “as soon as interrogations are complete” and permit him to leave the country today.

Iran’s official news organizations, Tehran radio and the Islamic Republic News Agency, said Seib will be expelled and will not be allowed to return.

The State Department and the Wall Street Journal both said they have received no confirmation of the reports. However, there seemed to be no reason to doubt the dispatches of the government-owned radio and news service.

Seib, 30, went to Iran along with more than 50 other reporters at the invitation of the government to visit the Iran-Iraq War front and cover several Iranian press conferences. He was arrested Saturday and accused of spying for Israel.

Prime Minister Hussein Moussavi, quoted by Tehran radio, said: “The journalist pursued unusual conversations and investigations on the war front. The matter was clarified during investigations.” He said Seib will be released with the conclusion of “interrogations,” and the official news agency said later that he will be freed today.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said he could offer no explanation of Tuesday’s development. He added, “I don’t think anybody has any analysis of why Mr. Seib was held from the start.”

Some non-government experts speculated earlier that anti-American hard-liners in the Tehran government arrested Seib to embarrass Iranian officials who might be prepared to deal with Washington and to sabotage any sort of rapprochement with the United States.

If that was the motive for the arrest, Seib’s release could indicate either that the hard-liners concluded that their message had been sent and there was no need to continue to hold the reporter or that other factions in the government overruled the militants.

Swiss Effort

Redman said the Swiss government, which has represented U.S. interests in Tehran since Iran and the United States broke diplomatic relations in 1979, had contacted Iranian authorities on Seib’s behalf, but he said the Swiss were denied permission to talk to him.

Redman also said the United States passed messages to Iran through other channels, although he declined to identify them.

But there was no give-and-take negotiating between the United States and Iran of the sort that took place between Washington and Moscow over the case of U.S. News & World Report journalist Nicholas Daniloff, who was arrested last year in the Soviet Union. Neither Iran nor the United States said there were any conditions attached to Seib’s release.

Seib’s brother Paul, contacted by news agencies at his home in Hays, Kan., said the journalist’s family was elated over the reports from Tehran but concerned that the news had not been officially confirmed.

“We don’t take anything for granted until the Wall Street Journal tells us he’s definitely been released,” Paul Seib told the Associated Press.

Changes Stance

Tehran radio earlier had called Seib a spy for “the Zionist regime” (Israel) who had entered Iran illegally “posing as a journalist.” But in recounting the decision to release Seib, the official Iranian news organizations indicated Wednesday that the government has decided that he is a bona fide reporter.

Before the announcement, the pro-government newspaper Kayhan said Seib had tried to discover sensitive military information, but it expressed confidence that he had been unable to do so.

“If he has not been able to gather important intelligence, he should be freed immediately,” the newspaper said in a commentary that probably had government sanction. “If his journalistic character overshadows his spy activities, he should have the necessary immunity because . . . he came here with our own authorization.”

The German news service Deutsche Presse-Agentur, in a report from Tehran, said Moussavi coupled his announcement that Seib would be released with a warning to the United States against military action in the Middle East. U.S. officials have said no such action is contemplated.

Three other Westerners held by Iran on espionage charges remain in prison. American telecommunications engineer Jon Pattis, Canadian engineer Philip Engs and British journalist-businessman John Cooper were arrested last year.