3rd Iran diplomat defects

Sep 15, 2010 |

Oslo, Sept. 14: An Iranian diplomat called on Tuesday for an uprising against the Tehran government, as he became the third Europe-based envoy to defect in 2010 and announced he was seeking asylum in Norway.

“I’m seeking political asylum with all my family,” Mr Farzad Farhangian, a press attache at the Iranian embassy in Brussels, told reporters in Oslo, adding he intended to join the opposition to the President, Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“I’m apologising to the Iranian people. During the last 30 years I was of service to the Iranian people, but the deviation that the Iranian republic has reached leaves me no choice,” he said.

“I hope to be a voice of the opposition,” he added. In January, Mr Mohamed Reza Heydari was granted asylum by Norway.

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