Iran’s hard-liners accuse sacked envoys of corruption

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Nov. 13 – Iran’s ultra-Islamist group Ansar-e Hezbollah accused the country’s former ambassadors who were recently sacked by hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of financial corruption. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 13 – Iran’s ultra-Islamist group Ansar-e Hezbollah accused the country’s former ambassadors who were recently sacked by hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of financial corruption.

Ahmadinejad’s foreign ministry has summoned some 40 of Tehran’s ambassadors and charge d’affaires to Tehran, in a massive purge of the country’s Foreign Service. The envoys make up nearly half the fleet, including those involved in the country’s nuclear negotiations with the European troika – Britain, France, and Germany.

Ansar-e Hezbollah, which is fiercely loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote in an article posted on their website that the ambassadors had become trade partners in a number of European firms and stood to lose personal profit if the international community sent Tehran’s nuclear dossier to the United Nations Security Council for economic sanctions.

The radical group accused the former envoys of having betrayed the country by expressing their regret in meetings with EU officials over the election of Ahmadinejad.