BEIRUT- French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Friday called on Iran to release French lecturer Clotilde Reiss, saying Tehran's accusation against her of spying "doesn't hold up." "Do you think my country would be so naive and shorthanded as to send a 23-year-old woman to spy in Iran? That's stupid, it's not possible," he told reporters during a visit to Lebanon. "This accusation doesn't hold up," said Kouchner."This young woman is innocent," he said of Reiss, a French lecturer at the Isfahan Technical University in central Iran, jailed in Iran on charges of espionage. "The innocent must be released. The innocent must be freed." 

Reiss has been detained in Iran's notorious Evin prison on charges of espionage, following her arrest on July 1 in the wake of massive opposition protests over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election in June.Iranian authorities accuse her of taking part in the protests and of sending an email to a friend in Tehran that contained information on the rallies, French officials said. 

Kouchner thanked Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki for having allowed France's ambassador to Iran, Bernard Poletti, to meet with Reiss on Thursday, and said Paris will do everything to seek her release. In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy dismissed as "pure fantasy" any suggestion that Reiss had been involved in espionage and called for her release. Kouchner, who heads to Syria on Saturday, meanwhile held talks with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and other officials and called for the formation of a Lebanese government outside any foreign intervention.