Iran’s foreign ministry this week “categorically denied” widely-broadcast reports which had Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hinting to German TV that Tehran might be willing to recognize Israel should the Jewish state secure a peace agreement with Palestinians. A foreign ministry official declared instead that Zarif had been misquoted and the top Iranian diplomatic “completely rejected the remarks attributed to him.”
In a phone conversation with FNA, Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi said Zarif “completely rejected the remarks attributed to him and declared that the Islamic Republic’s stance about the [Zionist] regime is what has been repeatedly announced by the country’s diplomacy apparatus and this stance has not changed.”
“Zarif’s remark are inconsistent with the principles upheld by the system, since Imam [Ali] Khomeini believed that the Zionist regime was a [malignant] tumor” and that it was a “bastard” regime, representative Ghasem Jafari told Iran’s Mehr News. “The Islamic Republic has expended great sums so that the Zionist regime would not be recognized,” he said.
The incident is not the first time since the election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in which optimistic media coverage touting Iranian moderation was met with explicit denials from Iranian officials. Widely conveyed reports published months ago had Iran had halting enrichment of its uranium to 20% purity, prompting a quick clarification by Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi stating the opposite. Last September a Twitter account linked to Rouhani generated what the Washington Post described at the time as a “frenzied response” when it was used to wish Jews a happy Jewish New Year. Rouhani’s office denied any links to the tweet. Iranian citizens were, days later, able to directly access social media networks for the first time in years, generating speculation from Western journalists that “Iran’s Berlin Wall of internet censorship crumbling.” The ban was imposed a day later. In September a German paper published rumors that Rouhani was prepared to shut down Iran’s underground enrichment bunker at Fordow, a suggestion that the regime immediately rejected and continues to explicitly reject. The degree to which Iranian officials are deliberately promoting misreporting by often sympathetic Western journalists is unclear.
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