UN ready to help find out whereabouts of Iranian diplomats

Beirut, Feb 22, IRNA - A UN spokesman has voiced readiness of the international body to help find out information about the fate of the abducted Iranian diplomats in Lebanon.

The spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Farhan Haq
made the remarks in an interview with the Lebanese daily ?al-Akhbar?
published on Saturday.

He added, ?I still believe that greater efforts can be made to settle
the issue even after 20 years.?

The daily added that Iran?s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in a
letter to the UN secretary-general has called for setting up of an
international committee to investigate the fate of the abducted
Iranian diplomats in Lebanon.

Iran?s then charge d?affaires to Beirut Mohsen Mousavi, military
attaché Ahmad Motevaselian, diplomat Taqi Rastegar-Moqaddam and the
Islamic Republic News Agency?s photographer Kazem Akhavan were
kidnapped by Israeli proxy forces led by Samir Geagea in Beirut in
July 1982.

They were escorted by the Lebanese police on their way back home from
a mission in northern Lebanon.

In an agreement reached between the Lebanese Hezbullah and the Zionist
regime on prisoner swap, the Zionist officials accepted to provide the
Islamic Resistance with a report on the fate of the four Iranian
diplomats.

Iranian Foreign Ministry is making a series of efforts to find out
whereabouts of the diplomats through regular meetings with senior
Lebanese officials to that end.