Ex-member of Islamic regime’s nuclear negotiation team: “Not prudent for me to be interviewed…”

Regime-run news agency Iran News reported: Former member of the Islamic republic’s nuclear negotiating team, Cyrus Nasseri*, who is currently in Iran said: “It is not prudent for me to be interviewed in connection with nuclear issues because it may have precipitous implications which could be misused by outsiders.” Nasseri emphasized: “I have been away from the nuclear issue for quite a while and am not apprised of the present conditions; current officials should be the ones commenting on these matters but I recommend that when speaking they have their positions well coordinated.”

Rejecting all rumors of his having taken asylum abroad, he stated: “I have currently returned to Tehran and am only hearing about the rumors of my asylum from you [members of the press].”

* On Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 one of the regime-run news agency, FARS, which is an 'information' arm of the Islamic judiciary, announced the arrest of Cyrus Nasseri among other executives of the Oriental Kish Oil Company, a company belonging to Rafsanjani's children and relatives. They were brought up on charges of economic corruption. According to the news agency's report: "Following the necessary investigations by the judiciary's bailiffs, with warrants from the public prosecutor's office (mainly mullahs who only dole out Islamic jurisprudence), the case of economic corruption and malfeasance, certain of the authorities of Kish Oriental Oil Company [which is considered to be one of the country's biggest oil companies], have been arrested and under questioning. The head of the board of directors was also among those detained."

The company was incorporated under the industrial and moral incorporation and ownership laws in the duty free area of Kish (an island in the Persian Gulf) and demonstrated to be a service and engineering company for oil drilling. Mehrdad Safdari, the head of the board of directors and Cyrus Nasseri, who also happens to be one of the senior nuclear negotiators of the regime, is said to be the Secretary of the board. Nasseri, who is considered to be one of the regime's senior ‘diplomats’, is also known to be one of Rafsanjani's relatives. He has been an active member of the so-called diplomatic team negotiating the nuclear issues has, through the help of a few authorities in the U.N. offices in Tehran, as well as a few active members of the energy cartel, registered Kish Oriental Oil Company in both the United Kingdom and Dubai.

A reliable source stated that given the parameters, the close-knit cooperation and association of one of the key members of the regime's nuclear negotiation team with Halliburton, can be an alarm bell which will necessarily influence the dynamics of the members of the regimes' negotiating committee.

During the first round of interrogations in the judiciary a huge network of oil mafia has been exposed and it is now clear that Kish Oriental Oil Company is the holder of the largest block of oil contracts with the National Iranian Oil Company.

Nasseri attempted to have take asylum abroad for fear of the regime’s disciplinary action against him but he returned to Iran under the protection of his relatives.