TEHRAN – Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi on Wednesday dismissed the reports of dual nationals in key governmental posts as “untrue.”

“Intelligence Ministry will welcome reports on dual nationality officials, if any,” he said.

The comments come a week after Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri railed against the Rouhani administration for not firing dual nationals with posts in the government.

“We have news that some officials have dual nationality and this is against law, Montazeri was quoted as saying.

He added, “The government announced that it would oust them but didn’t.”

Reacting to the remarks, Alavi accused Montazeri of “overgeneralization”.

Under Iran’s employment law, a person who applies for naturalization or is stripped of Iranian citizenship, as authorized and confirmed by the Foreign Ministry, cannot hold governmental office.

While no official data has been issued on the number of dual nationals with a position in the government, MP Hosseinali Haji Deligani put it at 12.

He gave no more comments.

The intelligence minister, however, categorically rejected all declared data, warning that the public opinion should not be disturbed with false news.

Earlier Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, a spokesman with the parliamentary national security and foreign policy committee, announced that the parliament was studying a motion to revoke the Iranian citizenship of dual nationals.

The issue of dual nationality has been an increasingly sensitive debate in Iran over the past years for security reasons.

It was brought up after a top bank manager fled to Canada after a huge fraud scandal.

Mahmoud Reza Khavari, the former head of Bank Melli - Iran's biggest state-owned bank - has yet to return from Canada, where he fled in 2011, despite calls to do so from the judiciary which was investigating a $2.6 billion fraud.
Iranian media have criticized the fact that Khavari held a dual Iranian-Canadian citizenship.

Also, certain Iranian media outlets let slip that a member of Iran’s nuclear negotiation team had been arrested under espionage charges.

AK/PA