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The National Security News Service has learned that the government of Iran approved the release of former FBI Agent Robert Levinson on Sunday. Levinson, who was detained on March 8 after a meeting with an expatriate American and wanted murderer on Kish Island, has been in Iranian custody ever since.

The release order came after Secretary of State Rice said publicly that she would meet with her Iranian counterpart to discuss areas of interest to the United States and Iran in Iraq. But the upcoming meeting on May 3, and 4 between Rice her Iranian counterpart Manuchehr Mottaki in Egypt may be a major opening in the standoff between Iran and the West on its nuclear program.

The Iranian government ordered the release as part of an effort to communicate directly with the United States. A reliable NSNS source in Iran said, “This makes sense coming as it does timed with the announcement that Tehran will be at Sharm el-Sheikh and the one who carried the message into Baghdad is the nuclear negotiator [Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council].”

Another source in Iran told NSNS that the mullahs who run the country have asserted themselves in this matter. “They see this as an opportunity and it is being taken here as a sign that the Iranian president is being by-passed, a clear indication of waning influence.”

A normally reliable source in Iran told NSNS that the Iranian government concluded Levinson was not on a spying mission when he met with Dawud Salahuddin at a Kish Island hotel on March 7. “The Iranians are satisfied that the meeting with the American fugitive was a private business venture.” Ira Silverman, the former NBC producer who introduced Levinson to the American fugitive, would not comment to NSNS but has told callers on Monday that “I have been up all night.” NSNS received word of the pending release at 3 am Monday, around midday Iranian time.