Iranian newspaper warns against showing enthusiasm for US
The Kayhan paper, sensing a nuclear deal is imminent, is worried about certain media outlets depicting the United States in a positive light.
With the nuclear negotiations possibly extending a few days past its June 30 deadline, Iranian media outlets are preparing for what they believe will be a historic deal. But this eagerness has concerned Iran’s leading hard-line newspaper, Kayhan, known for making veiled threats against Reformists and supporters of the Hassan Rouhani administration.
Kayhan’s editorial June 29, under the byline of Hossein Shamsian, said that “distorting reality and flipping upside down the truth is one of the most effective methods to deviating a society and influencing public opinion.” Shamsian called the nuclear negotiations “one of the most historic encounters with our nation's No. 1 enemy, meaning America.”
“While the soldiers on the diplomatic front, with the backing of a nation have sat across an enemy, some, instead of having sympathy for them, play another tune,” Shamsian wrote. He said this group tries “to depict an angel … instead of the Great Satan.” Shamsian said the problem with this depiction is that “when you are sitting across [from] an angel, you have no reason to not trust or resist against its wants.”
Shamsian did not refer to any particular media, but almost all of Iran’s Reformist media covered the nuclear talks on their front pages today, with many depicting Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s sudden trip back to Tehran for consultations in a positive light.
