Ahmadinejad said in a letter to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie had stepped down as first vice-president, a little over a week after he was appointed to the post, the official IRNA news agency said.
“I am sending you the letter of Rahim Mashaie announcing he is stepping down from the post of the vice president,” Ahmadinejad wrote to Khamenei in the letter, IRNA said.
Rahim Mashaie’s appointment triggered opposition from hardliners and plunged Iran into a fresh political turmoil even while it remains engulfed in the worst crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
(Published 25 July 2009, 16:16 IST)
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