united states will stand up for the rights of our citizens wrongfully detained overseas including siamak namazi consult regularly with the family and will continue to do so until this unacceptable detention ends and siamak is reunited with his family. the state department reiterated white house officials and senior state department officials have met with namazi's family and they're in contact regularly, state department spokesperson ned price said namazi's release has been a priority of the the current u.s. administration. here he is. >> we have made clear to the regime since the earliest days of this administration the priority we attach to seeing the prompt release of those americans who are detained wrongfully. we're always going to stand up for the rights of our citizens who are wrongfully detained and that, of course, includes siamak namazi. officials from this building as well as the white house meet and consult regularly with the namazi family and we'll continue to do so until this wrongful and unacceptable detention comes to an end. >> rising tensions between israelis and palestinians

siamak namazi has been held for more than seven years, and he spoke by phone to cnn's christiane amanpourgetting told that i'm going to be rescued, and deals fall apart or i get left abandoned. honestly, the other hostages and i desperately need president biden to finally hear us out, to finally hear our cry for help and bring us home. and i suppose desperate times call for desperate measures. so this is a desperate measure. i am clearly nervous. amna: namazi is one of three american citizens currently held by iran. environmentalist morad tahbaz was detained in 2018, as was businessman emad shargi. shargi was sentenced without a trial in 2020 to 10 years in prison for espionage. his sister, neda shargi, and one of his daughters, hannah shargi, join me now for an exclusive interview. welcome to you both. thank you for being here. >> you heard him speaking from inside the same prison where your father is held, your brother is held. he said it is dire, his voice was breaking. what was it like for you to hear that interview? >> it was heartbreaking. i imagined him being only doors away from t

iran american siamak namazi speaks exclusively with cnn's christiane amanpour by phone from inside iran's been behind bars since 2015 and claims he was left behind by the american gove government. in a plea to president biden, he asks not to be forgotten. >> you can imagine when we were given the opportunity to engage in this conversation, an enormous weight of responsibility, a bit of a fear about what might happen, but knowing it was siamak's decision because he felt so huutterly ale and so abandoned and out of options being in prison for seven years now. he calls himself a hostage. he refused any of the charges levelled against him. they forced him to spend 7 years of a 10-year sentence in evin prison. desperate he is to get a message to president biden, because he will be the one who has to agree to any deal with the iranian government to get himself and the other remaining iranian american prisoners out of evin and back home. here's part of what he told us. >> i think taking this risk to appear on cnn from prison should tell you how dire my situation has become by this point. i've be