U.S.-Iran education exchange plans cool over hardliners' spy charges

Reuters

By Arshad Mohammed and Parisa Hafezi

Just before last year's nuclear deal with Iran, five U.S. universities visited the country to explore renewing educational ties that flourished before the Islamic Revolution.

The group, which included representatives from Rutgers and the University of Southern California (USC), found a desire on both sides for more exchanges and concluded that U.S. students and scholars would be warmly welcomed in Iran. But there was a hitch -- the head of the delegation, Allan Goodman, was a former U.S. intelligence analyst. In March this year he was attacked in hardline Iranian media reports which have painted the June 2015 visit as a U.S. attempt to build an espionage network and undermine the Iranian state.

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