Qaani was never Iran’s deputy envoy to Afghanistan: MoFA

BAMYAN CITY (Pajhwok): The governor of central Bamyan province on Thursday said Esmail Qaani, the new commander of Iran’s Quds forces, had been introduced as deputy Iranian ambassador by the central government before he visited Bamyan in 2018.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) said Qaani was never a deputy Iranian envoy to Afghanistan and the issue would be investigated.

After replacing Qasim Sulaimani as Iran’s Quds forces commander, a picture of Qaani sitting with Bamyan governor Mohammad Tahir Zuhair went viral on social media.

Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, appointed Esmail Qaani as commander of Quds forces after the assassination of Qasim Sulaimani.

Qaani who was a senior operation-information commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, visited Bamyan province in 2018 at the head of a delegation.

He was introduced as deputy Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan when visiting the province.

The issue became sensitive after a journalist with Iran International TV channel in a tweet said, “The head of the Guards is in Bamyan, its tail is in the Middle East and body is in streets of Tehran.” However, the Bamyan governor rejected the tweet as false and baseless.

Mohammad Tahir Zuhair in an interview with Pajhwok Afghan News said, “Esmail Qaani was introduced as deputy ambassador to Afghanistan by the central government while visiting Bamyan and the local administration received the delegation.”

“The intention of the delegation was to visit construction process of a hospital funded by Iran, we met for 10 minutes,” he said.

Zuhair said the Iranian delegation had been referred to him from Kabul and the person meeting him introduced himself as deputy Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan named Ismaili.

“The trip of this delegation should be assessed by diplomatic relations section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he said.

This comes as Edrees Zaman, acting foreign minister, told a press conference two days ago said, “Qaani was never deputy ambassador (of Iran to Afghanistan) and we will investigate this issue and find what when and why that trip happened.”

He said Qaani was also seen in meetings with the president and in a trip with Iranian ambassador in Panjshir province.

Mds/ma