Tehran Times - Without giving their names, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi has said that Iran�s new ambassadors to China and New Delhi have been appointed.

In an interview with Fars news agency published on Tuesday, he also said that three ambassadors are scheduled to return to the country as their stay in the job runs counter to a parliamentary ratification banning employment of retirees.

Gholamali Khoshroo, ambassador to the UN; Ali Majedi, ambassador to Germany; and Ebrahim Taherian Fard, ambassador to Ankara, will return to the country.

It was announced in September that the plan to ban employment of the retirees will be implemented in two months. The plan approved by parliament and endorsed by the Guardian Council.

Abbasali Kadkhodaei, spokesman of the Guardian Council, said in September the ban includes governors, ambassadors and deputy ministers but not Guardian Council members, vice presidents, heads of the three branches of government (president, judiciary chief, and parliament speaker), parliamentarians, and presidential aides.

Exceptions are war veterans who suffer from over 50 percent disabilities, those who were held captive for more than three years in the Iraqi prisons following Iraq�s war against Iran in the 1980s, and also children of the martyrs, the spokesman explained.

Kadkhodaei also said that the armed forces follow different rules.