Last September, as he and President Rouhani pursuing their high-profile public diplomacy in New York, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the American outlet ABC News:
The Holocaust is not a myth. Nobody’s talking about a myth.
We condemn the killing of innocent people, whether it happened in Nazi Germany or whether it’s happening in Palestine.
[The] Holocaust was a heinous crime, it was a genocide, it must never be allowed to be repeated, but that crime cannot be and should not be a justification to trample the rights of the Palestinian people for 60 years.
More than seven months later, as the Rouhani Government is being pushed by hardliners to withdraw its initiatives for political and cultural change, Zarif supposedly bowed to the pressure in a meeting with MPs on Tuesday: “As long as I am the Foreign Minister, I will not let the country to be stigmatized by the Zionist project under the claim of unrealistic rejection of the Holocaust rejection.”
Even though he had framed his remarks on the Holocaust in the criticism of Israel’s policy and actions on Palestine, Zarif was criticized by legislators and questioned by Parliament.
However, he did not retract his reference to “genocide” and the “heinous crime” until today’s interrogation by MPs. Nor had he withdrawn other gestures of goodwill, such as last September’s greetings on social media for the Jewish New Year.
See Iran Daily, Sept 9: Twitter Escalates the Internal Fight Over Diplomacy
Has he now done so, marking another retreat by the Rouhani Government — for not only its domestic campaign but also its foreign policy?
Or is this propaganda by the Government’s enemies, putting words in Zarif’s mouth?
We watch Zarif’s Facebook page with interest to see if there is a “clarification”.
