A Japanese college student has been kidnapped in southeastern Iran by an armed group and Tokyo has asked Tehran for help to secure his safe release, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Thursday.
Komura said the government learned of the kidnapping directly from the student Monday, when he twice called the Japanese Embassy in Tehran. The student also called his family in Japan once.
According to an earlier report by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency of Iran, "a 23-year-old Japanese tourist" was kidnapped by "armed bandits" on his way to visiting a citadel in Kerman Province, southeastern Iran.