A top Iranian minister, who admitted having a forged Oxford University degree, faces being impeached by his country's parliament. Ali Kordan, the Iranian Interior Minister, faces MPs tomorrow after his admission.

But despite calls for his resignation from conservative and moderate MPs, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said impeachment was illegal as Mr Kordan did not commit the offence while in office, the Iranian Irna news agency reported.

"We do consider the parliament to be our ally, but we do not approve any impeachment," Mr Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying. He said his political opponents were behind the calls for impeachment.

Yesterday, Mr Ahmadinejad fired Muhammad Abbasi, a government official, after he was believed to have tried to pay lawmakers in exchange for their promise not to impeach the minister.

MPs questioned Mr Kordan’s qualifications for the post in August but he was approved by a small margin to take up the position.

Oxford said it had no record of Mr Kordan receiving an honorary doctorate or any other degree from the university.

A spokeswoman said: “The document that has been made public is not a genuine University of Oxford degree certificate.

“The names of the professors at the bottom of the document are people who have all at some stage held posts at the University of Oxford. However, none of them has worked in the field of Law, and none of them would have been a signatory of any University of Oxford degree certificate.”

After he was confirmed in his job, Mr Kordan admitted his degree had been counterfeited in a letter to Mr Ahmadinejad, who forwarded it to parliament.

In a letter to Mr Ahmadinejad, he said the degree had ostensibly been awarded for his "managerial and executive experience and for submitting a thesis to Oxford University via a person who had opened an affiliate office in Tehran.”

He said his enquiries since doubts were raised had shown it was not genuine, and he said he had filed a complaint against an unnamed intermediary.

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