Tehran – Iranian authorities have arrested the country’s former nuclear negotiator, an ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s predecessor and key rival, and he reportedly could face an espionage charge.
The hard-line president, meanwhile, insisted his country will not retreat “even an iota” on its nuclear program.
The Iranian state-run news agency said Hossein Mousavian was arrested Monday in the capital, Tehran.
Iran did not officially release any details about the specific charges against him. But the semiofficial Fars news agency – which is deemed close to the elite Revolutionary Guards – said Mousavian could face espionage charges.
“The probable charge of espionage activities may be raised against him,” the agency quoted an unidentified official as saying. “Mousavian was arrested because of connections and exchange of information with foreign elements.”
Fars said Mousavian was summoned to the prosecutor’s office Monday, where he was arrested and taken to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran.
Mousavian was a member of the Iranian nuclear negotiating team until 2005 and before that was ambassador to Germany.
He was a close ally of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Rafsanjani, a high-ranking cleric, holds seats on two of Iran’s most important government bodies and is considered Ahmadinejad’s main political rival. Seen as a more pragmatic conservative than Ahmadinejad, Rafsanjani has taken a somewhat more conciliatory stance toward the U.S. and its allies over Tehran’s nuclear program.
If Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was behind Mousavian’s arrest, it could be a sign that Rafsanjani and his allies were gaining ground on hard-liners, said Jon Wolfsthal, an international security expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Wolfsthal noted that Khamenei tries to maintain the balance between the two sides.
