Tehran holds diplomat on security charges

IRAN: A senior Iranian diplomat who played a prominent role in negotiations on the country's nuclear programme was arrested …

IRAN:A senior Iranian diplomat who played a prominent role in negotiations on the country's nuclear programme was arrested in Tehran on security charges, it was reported yesterday.

Hossein Mousavian was taken from his home on Monday by security officials and charged with passing on information on Iran's nuclear industry, the news agency IRNA reported, without saying who allegedly received the information.

Mr Mousavian had served as deputy head of the Iranian delegation in talks with the west on Tehran's nuclear ambitions and had been ambassador to Germany.

Since the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he had left the government. He was working at a Tehran think-tank at the time of his detention.

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Politically, he is seen as a moderate and a pragmatist, allied to Mr Ahmadinejad's most powerful rival, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is at the centre of plans to rally a broad anti-government coalition to unseat the president.

"Unless they can provide any serious evidence, this is quite a serious assault on the centrists within the regime and one which they are not likely to take lying down," according to Ali Ansari, an expert on Iran at St Andrews University. Diplomatic sources said it was initially unclear if the arrest was politically inspired.

During the 2005 presidential race, Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran's nuclear negotiators had been too timid, although after his election win, Iran continued talks with the EU. - (Guardian service; additional reporting Reuters)