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Iran's Intelligence Ministry, judiciary clash over sentenced nuclear negotiator

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry denies claims by Iran’s judiciary that a sentenced Iranian nuclear negotiator was a spy.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi and the Iran

Conflicting reports about the arrest of an Iranian nuclear negotiator have been circling in Iranian media since August 2016, when Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, spokesman for the judiciary, confirmed the news. The individual, whose name was not initially revealed, is Abdol Rasul Dori Esfahani, a dual Iranian-Canadian national and member of the negotiation team who worked on economic and banking sanctions.

On Oct. 4, the news of Dori Esfahani’s arrest resurfaced when Mohseni-Ejei confirmed his conviction. At the press conference, Mohseni-Ejei said that Dori Esfahani was accused of “spying for two [foreign] spy agencies and was sentenced to five years in prison.” He added that Dori Esfahani also had a “financial case,” meaning corruption, which he has not yet been sentenced for.

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