Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Apr. 09 Irans hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will soon replace Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi and Economy and Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari. Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Apr. 09 Irans hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will soon replace Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi and Economy and Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari.
The President told me on Sunday that he personally spoke with two of his cabinet colleagues, explaining to them his views and asking them to serve the government in other positions, the official news agency IRNA quoted government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham as saying.
Elham confirmed that both Pour-Mohammadi and Danesh Jafari would be replaced, but said he did not know who would be taking their place.
The news agency Fars, which is run by the office of Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, quoted an informed source on Monday as saying that Danesh-Jafari, 53, was expected to be appointed as Irans ambassador to Canada or Germany.
Among the likely replacement candidates to head the Economy and Finance Ministry are First Vice-President Parviz Davoudi, presidential advisor Sadeq Mahsouli, and Mohammad-Reza Rahimi who heads the State Audit Court, the report said.
Danesh-Jafari was previously chairman of the Majlis committee on economy and finance and a leading member of the hard-line Islamist faction, Abadgaran, in the Majlis.
He is also a former member of the Central Command of Jihad Sazandegi, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards.
Radical Shiite cleric Hojjatol-Islam Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, 49, was previously in charge of the Special Department for Security and Intelligence in the Office of the Supreme Leader.
He is also a former Deputy Minister of Intelligence and Security and a former Military Revolutionary Prosecutor. Human rights groups charge that Pour-Mohammadi oversaw the murder of thousands of political prisoners in Iranian jails in 1988.
