|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Iran's Mystery Man at the United Nations Stewart Stogel Next month, Iran's veteran U.N. ambassador Mohammad Javad Zarif will end his 5-year tenure as the Islamic Republic's U.S.-U.N. pointman and enter "academia" when he joins the faculty of Tehran University. Zarif, who has spent more than 25 years in the U.S., first as a student at the Universities of San Francisco and Denver, later as a New York-based Iranian diplomat, was a favorite among television news talk shows and a sought after speaker on the Manhattan "cocktail" circuit. But just who replaces the affable Zarif is a bit of a mystery: Tehran says Mohammad Khazai Torshizi will take the United Nations post next month. The only background info provided by the Iran/U.N. mission is that Torshizi currently works "at the Commerce Ministry" and had worked at the World Bank in Washington. Other than that, Torshizi's background has been a bit of a mystery. An Iranian resistance group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has done its own background research of Iran's new U.N. ambassador. Here are some of its findings: Story Continues Below
Prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the late Shah of Iran was deposed, Torshizi was living in the U.S. as a foreign exchange student and a member Iranian Students Association. Shortly after the Shah fell and an Islamic Republic declared, Torshizi returned home and took a job at the Islamic Revolution Council in the northern province of Gilan. He also joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at the same time. It was during this time that Torshizi is alleged to have made contact with the student group that invaded and took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran. It is not clear what role, if any, he may have had with the U.S. diplomats held hostage by radical Iranian students. Those U.S. citizens were kept hostage for 444 days until the Reagan administration eventually won their release. In 1980, Torshizi was promoted to run Iranian state TV in the northern Gilan province. He then worked his way up the ranks of the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) and eventually served two terms in parliament. In the early 1980's, Torshizi is said to have founded a group called the "Association of Revolutionary Youths in Rashit" (provincial capital of Gilan). That group is said to have had a notorious reputation of beating up women on local streets for their "immodesty." After leaving parliament, Torshizi worked as an "adviser" in the Ministry of Islamic Guidance. In 1989, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and became the Director of the Second Office of Persian Gulf Affairs. In 1990, Torshizi left for Washington and worked as the Iranian representative at the World Bank. He remained in D.C. till 1994. While in the D.C. area, Torshizi joined the local Islamic Cultural Center and became a well-known fundamentalist. It is said he recruited locals for further "training" in Iran. Just what the U.S. "locals" did in Iran is not exactly clear. It all took place during the first bombing of the World Trade Center in in Manhattan (Feb. 1993). Upon his return to Iran, Torshizi worked as an adviser to the Commerce Minister and the Director of World Bank Affairs. His official title now is Deputy Commerce Minister and the head of Iran's "Investment Organization." NewsMax has learned that the State Dept. has been "carefully" reviewing Torshizi's background. But, under its agreement with the U.N., the U.S. cannot deny the Iranian a visa to work in New York City. However, they have delayed his arrival, albeit by only several weeks. Torshizi's impending arrival comes as the U.N. Security Council considers new economic sanctions on Tehran for refusing to halt its nuclear activities which the White House insists is geared to producing a secret atomic bomb. © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Print Page 
Forward Page 
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2008 NewsMax.Com |