TEHRAN - Iran is launching an investigation into the "treason" of a leading reformist MP who gave an interview to a US-funded Persian television channel, the intelligence minister said on Wednesday.
Noureddine Pir Mouazen, the spokesman of reformists in parliament, gave an interview about Friday's legislative elections to the Persian service of the Voice of America (VoA), a channel despised by Iran's clerical leaders.
"This has definitely been treason and an appalling act," Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie told state-run news agency IRNA.
"The law bans people in such positions from interviews with foreign radios and television," he said. "The intelligence ministry will certainly probe this and will not ignore it."
Pir Mouazen reportedly criticised the disqualifications of reformists and cast doubt on the significance of the elections in the interview aired earlier this week.
Iran's hardline vetting body the Guardians Council had previously barred Pir Mouazen, 49, from standing in the polls for the city of Ardebil in northwestern Iran.
Dozens of Persian language radio and television stations like Voice of America broadcast to Iran from the United States and Europe.
The authorities accuse the channels of broadcasting anti-Islamic republic propaganda and have banned satellite dishes to prevent polluting the public mind. But flouting of this rule is widespread.
A meeting between the brother of reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami and the German ambassador has also caused an outcry from conservatives in a fractious run-up to the parliamentary elections.
"Contacting foreigners has certain codes and not everyone can talk over any issues to foreigners," commented Ejeie. "Such an act should be coordinated with the foreign ministry."
"It will harm the country and will be regarded as betrayal if issues against the system and domestic policies are discussed in these meetings which could be exploited by the enemies."
Iran's hardline Kayhan newspaper accused Mohammad Reza Khatami of voicing "worries about Iran's nuclear victory in a confidential meeting" with the German ambassador, Herbert Honsowitz.
Ruhollah Hosseinian, a leading hardliner who heads the archives centre of the Islamic revolution, entered the fray by accusing Mohammad Reza Khatami of also meeting British diplomats.
"Reza Khatami has in past had such meetings with British diplomats to an extent that the British ambassador expressed satisfaction with this meeting to their Foreign Office.
"I have enough evidence for these meetings," he said, according to the Fars news agency.
Contacts between Iranians and embassies have become an extremely sensitive issue under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, especially after ex-nuclear official Hossein Moussavian was arrested for allegedly handing secrets to the British.
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03/12/2008 12:50 GMT