Iranian diplomat detained in Cairo

29 May 2011 | 18:00 Code : 13231 Latest Headlines

CAIRO: An Iranian diplomat working at the Iran mission in Cairo was detained earlier this week, security sources told Bikya Masr. The diplomat, Qassem Hosseini, was taken in for questioning after a tip-off led investigators to the Iran mission. Reports from other media organizations say that Hosseini is being held for “passing information” from the mission in Cairo back to his headquarters in Tehran.

Security sources confirmed that Hosseini was arrested and interrogated, but they did not confirm if he remains in custody and did not give details of his diplomatic status.

Diplomatic ties between Egypt and Iran have been severed since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979 – after which the Shah of Iran was received along with his family in Egypt after going into exile. While diplomacy is strained between the governments, each maintains a mission in the other’s capital.

The office of Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby has not commented on the arrest of the Iranian diplomat. Elaraby had said in April, after meeting a top Iranian official in Cairo, that Egypt was open to re-establishing diplomatic relations.

The detention of Hosseini could lead to new setbacks in Egypt’s attempt at improving relations with Iran.

In late April of this year, Kuwait and Bahrain expelled several Iranian diplomats after a court verdict in Kuwait linked Iranian diplomats with a spy ring operating in Kuwait. The diplomats were accused of having direct connections with the espionage network while also reporting back to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.