Iran FM summoned to parliament over stroll with Kerry

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is due to appear in front of his country’s parliament over a private encounter with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Switzerland two weeks ago.

Zarif, Tehran’s chief negotiator in the nuclear negotiations with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany, strolled down several streets in Geneva for 15 minutes with the US secretary of state on January 14 during a lull in discussions.

Images of the two men together sparked widespread condemnation among Iranian hardliners, who often regard the US as the Islamic Republic’s greatest enemy.

According to Reuters, 21 members of the Iranian parliament signed a petition to summon the diplomat in front of the legislature and have him explain the encounter with the “Great Satan” — an oft-used reference to the United States — as reactionary clerics throughout the country reprimanded Zarif and President Rouhani for the perceived faux pas.

“Given the Great Satan’s endless demands and sabotage during the course of the nuclear negotiations, there is no conceivable ground for intimacy between the foreign ministers of Iran and America,” said the petition published in Fars News, a semi-official Iranian news publication linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

“Your exhibitionist walk together with [Kerry] along Geneva sidewalks was certainly outside the norms of diplomacy, so why don’t you put a stop to such behavior?”

This is not the first time the foreign minister, who is considered a moderate in his home country, has been summoned by the parliament: In February 2014, Zarif caused a row after publicly denouncing the Holocaust and was later called to the legislative house to justify his comments.

Zarif defended the chat with Kerry in a conversation with reporters in Tehran last week. “We had a serious, earnest session and perhaps there was a need to pause for a few minutes and resume in another form,” he explained. “These are quite normal in the world of diplomacy, especially since our hotel had no yard or garden, and the surrounding alleys were packed with curious journalists.”

Washington and Tehran broke off diplomatic relations following the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, a staunch American ally.

Relations between the two countries have remained icy as Western powers have maintained Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a claim the Islamic Republic strongly denies.