Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Only hours after the Islamic Republic confirmed the short meeting between the U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, the country's hardliners have started severely criticizing the top diplomat on the issue.
Mansour Haghighatpour, deputy chairman of the commission on national security and foreign policy of the Iranian parliament, emphasized that Zarif should apologize to Iranians for shaking hands with Obama.
It was an obscene and unacceptable move and Zarif should apologize for that, Haghighatpour said, Iran 's semi-official Fars news agency reported. Sept. 30.
Obama and Zarif shook hands on the sidelines of the 70th United Nations General Assembly Sept. 28, the first handshake between a US president and a senior Iranian official since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian officials say that the short meeting was unplanned.
Haghighatpour argued that since the US has not apologized to Tehran for its former interventions in Iran 's internal affairs, moves such as what Zarif did is unacceptable.
"Americans should promise not to interfere in the internal affairs of our country."
Alireza Zakani, who heads a parliamentary commission tasked with examining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also said that shaking hands with Obama was unjustified and should be seriously considered.
Iranian parliament will seriously consider the issue, the conservative MP underlined, Tasnim news agency reported Sept. 30.
Zarif has broken a taboo by shaking hands with "great Satan," Zakani said, adding it is unforgivable mistake.
If it is a deliberated attempt to normalize relations with the US it will be a move against the Islamic Republic aspirations, but if the handshake happened spontaneously it was a failure of Iran 's diplomacy in forecasting the enemy's moves.
Iranian media outlets also reported that the lawmakers have chanted slogans against the US during the parliament's open session Sept. 30 morning to protest the historic event.
There was earlier some speculation about a possible meeting of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart on the sidelines of the assembly, however it did not happened.
It should be noted that Rouhani and Obama spoke by phone in September 2013 on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly. The phone conversation was the first direct communication in decades between the heads of state of the two countries. Iranian conservatives severely criticized Rouhani on the issue.
Edited by CN
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