Iran Appoints New Ambassador To Ukraine

Tehran, June 24, IRNA – Mohammad Beheshti-Monfared, head of Iranian Organization on International Bodies, was appointed by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as Iran’s new envoy to Ukraine and will soon leave for Kiev on Monday. Beheshti-Monfared will be replacing Ambassador Akbar Qassemi in the Ukrainian capital city. He is a BA graduate of University of Tehran in sociology and an MA graduate of the Foreign Ministry’s International Relations College in political management. From 1992 to 1996 Monfared served as Iran’s ambassador to Ethiopia and the accredited ambassador to Djibouti and Eritrea, while from 2002 to 2006 he was the IRI ambassador to Bangladesh. Among his other career responsibilities in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs there are the managing director of Public Relations and Propagations, and deputy head of the Center for International Studies and Research Center for executive affairs. Iran has been seeking to bolster ties with Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine, in all the different industrial, political, economic and cultural spheres in the last few years. After purchasing the production license for the Antonov-140 from Ukraine in 2000, Iran built its first Iran-140 passenger plane in 2003. The first Iran-140 aircraft was introduced by Iran in 2003. Five domestically-manufactured Iran-140 planes were completed in October 2008 to increase the country’s transportation capacity and upgrade the Iranian passenger fleet. The Iran-140 is a double-engine turboprop aircraft which can fly almost 1,865 miles before re-fueling and its passenger model seats 52 people./end