TEHRAN – Iran has reportedly appointed new envoys for Syria and Afghanistan. The newly appointed ambassadors are expected to discharge their duties in the coming weeks. 

Iraqi news website Middle East News reported Sunday that Iran has Hossein Akbari as its new ambassador to Syria. Akbari will replace Mehdi Sobhani whose tenure as an ambassador has come to an end. 

Akbari has previously served as Iran’s ambassador to Libya. 

After days of media speculations, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported that the Iranian Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Hassan Kazemi Qomi will replace the outgoing Ambassador to Afghanistan Bahador Aminian.

Citing an announcement by the Iranian embassy in Kabul, IRNA said Qomi has been nominated ambassador to Afghanistan after the three-year tenure of Aminian as Iranian envoy to Afghanistan came to an end. 

Qomi has been appointed as Iran’s presidential envoy for Afghanistan by the Raisi administration. He was Iran’s first ambassador to Iraq after the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime. 

The ambassador turnover has come with rumors that Aminian is being changed as a result of documents hacked from Fars News in which he inveighed against the Taliban. The Iranian embassy in Afghanistan has rejected the rumors, saying that the change has nothing to do with the leaked documents. 

Qomi has recently proposed the formation of a joint committee with the Afghan authorities with the aim of jointly combatting terrorism.

In comments after attending the Moscow format meeting on Afghanistan, Kazemi Qomi said it is necessary for Iran and Afghanistan to set up a joint security and information exchange committee to counter terrorist threats.

He also urged that the neighbors of Afghanistan should provide assistance to Afghanistan within the framework of a coordination or security committee.

The neighbors of Afghanistan can cooperate with Kabul by training the country’s security forces, exchanging information, and providing equipment, he added, according to a Tasnim report.

Qomi has recently underlined the need for using the capacity of Afghan investors. “During this year, half of the foreign investment made in Iran is related to Afghan investors, and today, when the country is facing difficulties in attracting foreign investment, the high investment capacity of Afghan nationals should be used in the best way,” he said according to IRNA. 

He added, “During the previous years, at one point, the United Arab Emirates expelled 700 Afghan economic activists from this country, whose capital was estimated at 30 billion dollars, but unfortunately, we failed to attract this capital.”

He noted, “Our approach to Afghan nationals should be opportunity-oriented, and some measures such as blocking the account of Afghan nationals in the country have delivered a big blow to attracting foreign capital.”

According to an IRNA report, 1,600 companies owned by Afghan nationals in Mashhad have official licenses for economic activity.

The Association of Afghan Economic Activists in Razavi Khorasan has announced that the assets of Afghan businessmen and companies operating in the province are about one billion dollars.