TEHRAN, Nov 2: Iran’s new hard line government is replacing some 40 of its most senior diplomats posted abroad in a massive overhaul of the country’s diplomatic service, the foreign minister announced on Wednesday.

The move comes just months after the shock presidential election victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and amid escalating tensions between Iran and the West over its nuclear programme.

“The missions of some 40 ambassadors or heads of mission will come to an end from now until the end of the year (March 2006), and after the designation of replacements they should in principle continue to work for the foreign ministry,” Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying by Iranian news agencies.

Several of the diplomats being changed are seen as having been close to either the former reformist government or more moderate conservative forces and were engaged in the lengthy nuclear talks with Britain, France and Germany.

Those talks broke down in August when Iran rejected an EU offer of trade and other incentives in exchange for a cessation of fuel work and resumed uranium conversion, a precursor to ultra-sensitive enrichment work.—AFP