Speaking at a news conference held today, he asserted: "As I announced before, immediately after hearing that a number of our engineers have been kidnapped in Afghanistan, through Afghanistan's embassy in Tehran and our embassy in that country we pursued the issue and several contacts with the political officials and frontier guards of Afghanistan were made."
"In the follow up we were informed that they are safe. In the meantime we have stressed that the government of Afghanistan is responsible to protect the life of these Iranian citizens and should make the best to get them released." Mehmanparast stated.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman underlined: "The Iranian engineers were working on a development project in cooperation with several Afghani citizens who were kidnapped and their release is on the agenda of Iran's Foreign Ministry,"
Earlier the director of public works for Farah Province where Iranians were abducted said they worked for a company called Jahad Nasr based in Tehran, assigned to construct roads in Farah. Unknown militants in the region claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and threatened to kill the hostages if work on the road is not stopped. The number of hostages is not quite clear.
Answering a question on the visit Iran's ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei paid to Egypt, Mehmanparast noted: "Regarding the new developments in Egypt and a government which has come into office through the support of people from one hand, and the tendency of the officials of the both countries toward the resumption of ties, we must indicate that the expansion of the formal relations is of benefit to the both nations."
He went on to say that the visit of Khazaei to Egypt was within the framework of specialized meetings of the United Nations and not related to boosting ties between the two countries: "Immediately after the first opportunity is provided for the expansion of formal relations between the two countries, we will take advantage of that."
Declaring that the news on appointing a new Iranian ambassador to Egypt is based on the presupposition and baseless, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman pointed out: "As soon as the ground is prepared for developing relations between the two countries, we will take concrete steps to achieve such goal."
The Islamic republic's officials believe the United States administration and the Zionist regime of Israel are to sour the new approach of the two Muslim countries in resuming earlier strained ties.
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