Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has tangled
with the parliament over impeachment of his interior minister, Fars
news agency reported Sunday.
The parliament is to vote Tuesday on impeaching Interior Minister
Ali Kordan for having presented the lawmakers with a faked honorary
doctorate from Oxford University.
'The parliament has every right to impeach ministers but in this
case I do not agree with the impeachment and will therefore no go to
the session (Tuesday), either, because they (MPs) would just raise
repetitious claims again,' Fars quoted the president as saying.
Observers believe that the parliament would either ask Kordan to
resign or dismiss him as presentation of false documents, especially
in government service, is a crime punishable by a imprisonment in
Iran.
Kordan himself said that he would respect any decision taken by
the parliament but not resign voluntarily.
In a letter to Ahmadinejad last month, Kordan admitted that the
certificate from the prestigious British university which he
presented to parliament was a fake but claimed that he was victim of
a swindle by a man who allegedly posed as a representative of the
university in Tehran.
The Kordan case had led to differences and even disputes among
deputies in parliament.
While the pro-Ahmadinejad wing considers an impeachment as
weakening the government, signatories of the impeachment motion say
irrespective of whether he had been deceived or was dishonest, Kordan
could no longer hold the post of interior minister - a post directly
in charge of next year's presidential elections.
Last Wednesday the differences led to a scandal after the
government's representative at the parliament, Mohammad Abbasi, was
caught while he was trying to use a governmental financial aid as a
mean to push deputies to drop the impeachment motion.
After Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani declared Abbasi as persona
non grata in the parliament, Ahmadinejad was forced to dismiss his
legislative representative.
The power conflict between government and parliament is regarded
by observers to be also a conflict between Ahmadinejad and Larijani.
Larijani used to be a close aide of the president and acted as his
chief nuclear negotiator but resigned in October 2007 due to grave
differences with Ahmadinejad how to handle the nuclear dispute.
Larijani made a political comeback however in last March's
parliamentary elections and was elected as speaker and head of the
neo-conservative faction which is critical of Ahmadinejad's policies.
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