http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0510/Ahmadinejad_cancels_his_press_conference.html#

The United Nations public affairs office informs the press that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has cancelled a press conference scheduled for 3pm today. [UPDATE:  The office now says the press conference has been moved to the Millenium Hotel across the street from the UN.]

Meantime, the mothers of three American hikers detained in Iran since July are seeking a meeting with the Iranian leader to implore him for their release, as is Christine Levinson, the wife of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing following a meeting on Kish Island in March 2007.

In Washington, a group of U.S. Senators are holding a press conference at 11:30 am today to ask Ahmadinejad to release Sarah Shourd, 31, Josh Fattal, 27, and Shane Bauer, 27, who were taken into Iranian custody last July while hiking in Kurdish northern Iraq and have been held since then in Tehran’s Evin prison without charge.

“Since their detainment, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal have been allowed only one phone call home on March 9 and have had access to a few letters sent by friends and relatives,” a press release from U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Bob Casey (D-PA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Al Franken (D-MN) said. “Otherwise, the hikers have had little contact with the outside world and are grappling with various medical ailments. Iran has not yet granted visas requested by the detainees’ families and officials there claim the hikers will be put on trial, although they have not been formally charged nor given access to their lawyer.”

The three American hikers appear to be caught in an Iranian political web, and we don’t know how to loosen it, a Washington Iran hand said.

“We don’t know what happened to Bob,” Christine Levinson told RFERL. “We don’t know if he has been the victim of a crime and is being held against his will, or if he may be sick or in a hospital and unable to contact us. We have heard nothing since he disappeared. But we absolutely believe he is alive and needs his family.”

Levinson had not had any response to requests to meet with Ahmadinejad as of earlier this morning, a family member said.

UPDATE: Ahmadinejad press conference back on, McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay tells me. It’s going to take place across the street from the UN at the Millenium Hotel, the UN said.