Iran dismisses West-leaning officials

TEHRAN -- Iran's government announced yesterday that 40 ambassadors and senior diplomats, including supporters of warmer ties with the West, will be fired, continuing a purge of reformers as the regime takes an increasingly tough stance at home and abroad.

The diplomatic changes are part of a government shake-up by ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that includes putting Islamic hard-liners in key posts at security agencies. Some Iranians worry the president will bring back strict social policies.

Ahmadinejad has steered the Persian state into a more confrontational stance in its dealings with other nations, particularly in facing suspicions about whether Iran's nuclear program is illicitly trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge that the regime denies.

The president also raised a storm of international criticism last week by calling for Israel to be ''wiped off the map."

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced the diplomatic shuffle to parliament. He said ''the missions of more than 40 ambassadors and heads of Iranian diplomatic missions abroad will expire by the end of the year," which is March 20 under the Iranian calendar.

Since winning election in June to succeed reformist president Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad has taken a harder line in negotiations with the European Union over Iran's nuclear program.

In Vienna, meanwhile, diplomats said yesterday that Iran had met a key demand from the International Atomic Energy Agency by opening a high-security military site to UN inspectors looking for signs of a nuclear weapons program.

But in a worrying sign, one diplomat said, Tehran also has told the UN agency it will soon convert more raw uranium into gas -- the final step before an enrichment process that produces material that can be used either in generating electricity or in making atomic bombs.

Hard-liners in Iran had criticized Khatami's government for agreeing to freeze much of Iran's nuclear activities, and Ahmadinejad has already replaced the negotiating team with hard-liners.

''He wants to remove any official or diplomat with liberal thinking or anybody who backs better relations with the West," said political analyst Davoud Hermidas Bavand.

Mottaki, whose announcement was reported by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, did not specify which ambassadors were being removed. But the news agency said they include Iran's ambassador to Britain, Mohammad Hossein Adeli, a leading member of the foreign policy wing that supports improved contacts with other countries.

Officials at the Foreign Ministry also said the ambassadors to France, Germany, and Malaysia -- all with links to moderates -- would be fired. The officials agreed to discuss the firings only on condition of anonymity, because they are not authorized to speak to journalists.

Mottaki said Iran's envoy to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is known for his pragmatic approach, would keep his post. Zarif, however, previously was removed from Iran's nuclear negotiating team.

At its September meeting, the 35-nation IAEA board told Iran to suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment, including conversion, and to give agency analysts access to research, specialists, facilities, and documents or be referred to the UN Security Council.

Iran says it has not proceeded to uranium enrichment, but insists the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty allows it to produce reactor fuel for a civilian power program. It denies trying to make nuclear weapons.

A diplomat close to the IAEA said a message from the Iranian government posted on the agency's internal website read: ''The next [conversion] campaign will start" within weeks.

The United States and other nations have long accused Iran of working on atomic weapons in violation of the nonproliferation treaty, and other countries became concerned when Tehran disclosed in 2002 that it had hidden some nuclear work from UN inspectors.