Ahmadinejad fires foreign minister

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has fired Manouchehr Mottaki, his foreign minister, the official IRNA news agency has reported. The announcement came on Monday, while Mottaki was in Senegal on a visit. No reasons were gven
Ahmadinejad appointed the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, a close ally to the president, as caretaker for the ministry, state television reported.
Sadegh Zibakalam, a professor in political science at the Tehran university, told Al Jazeera that there had been rumours of tensions between Ahmadinejad and Mottaki.
"The relationship between the ex-foreign minister and Ahmadinejad hasn't been going that well," he said. "When he was appointed, five years ago, there were a lot of rumours that Mottaki had been imposed on Ahmadinejad and he wasn't pleased to have him. Since then, on half a dozen occasions, there had been rumours that Ahmedinejad had either sacked Mottaki or asked him to resign."
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's chief political analyst, said that there had been rumours of discord between the two men.