as the head of the Social Security Organization, the Fars news agency reported Monday.
Mortazavi’s recent appointment by President Ahmadi-nejad was questioned by a number of Majlis deputies since Mortazavi is under investigation for the deaths of protesters at the Kahrizak detention center in June 2009. Deputies subsequently submitted a motion to oust Labor Minister Abdol-Reza Shaikholeslami if Mortazavi was not replaced.
The ouster vote was called off after two senior deputies said Mortazavi had contacted them to say he would resign. His resignation, however, was not accepted by Ahmadi-nejad, who ordered him to remain in his new post.
According to Fars, in response to Deputy Ahmad Tavakkoli’s letter criticizing Mortazavi for not fulfilling his promise, Mortazavi wrote back denying he had promised to resign. He said: “God is my witness that neither in a meeting with [Deputy Gholam-Ali] Haddad-Adel nor with Mr. Tavakkoli did I swear on my honor to step down.”
Mortazavi said in the letter that he had filed a complaint against Tavakkoli for spreading lies, and that he had asked Tavakkoli to submit a video recording of the meeting where he supposedly gave his word of honor to resign. Tavakkoli has never suggested that a video of the meeting was made.
Mortazavi said: “The only promise I made, which I kept on the same day, was to announce readiness to resign, nothing else.”
The former prosecutor continued: “Mr. Tavakkoli expects me to desert my post and disobey my superiors’ orders, which … is a crime.”
Mortazavi ended his letter by saying: “Therefore, I prefer to leave this issue to the Judiciary to investigate and decide so that public opinion is not disturbed by such worthless and false accusations.”