صراط عشق صراط عشق
The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador on Thursday after a photo was posted on the Russian embassy’s Twitter account recalling the 1943 Tehran Conference, when Iran was occupied by the Allied powers, despite neutrality in WWII.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the new UK ambassador to Iran, Simon Shercliff, to protest over the joint photo of Russian Ambassador Levand Jagaryan and the British envoy, sitting where then-US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, then-British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin sat together at the Russian embassy during the 1943 meeting.
The meeting, a dark event in the history of Iran, was held when Iran, despite its official neutrality in the World War II, was under Allied occupation and battling famine.
The picture, which outgoing foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called “extremely inappropriate”, has drawn condemnation in Iran.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Baqar Qalibaf also lashed out at the foreign diplomats, calling the action “far from diplomatic ethics and inappropriate,” while demanding an apology.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry also summoned the Russian envoy to formally register its protest.
The envoy reiterated that the photo did not mean to undermine Iran, but only sought to emphasize Russian and British efforts against Nazi Germany.
He also “regretted” that the publication of the photo had “caused misunderstanding and resentment” among the people of Iran.
Foreign minister-designate, Hossein Amirabdollahian, said it “showed disregard for diplomatic etiquette and the national pride of the Iranian people”.
Sayed Mohammad Marandi, a senior political analyst, said the ambassadors were “insulting all Iranians”.
“The Tehran Conference was a violation of Iranian sovereignty and symbolic of the historic crimes committed by the US, Russia and UK against Iranians,” Marandi said on Twitter.
“I have no expectations of UK diplomats, but why the Russian ambassador,” he questioned.
The Russian Embassy in Tehran, following the backlash, released a statement on Thursday morning, saying the photo “does not have any anti-Iranian context”.
