Criticism over Kerry-Zarif stroll did not disrupt Rouhani meeting
Officials in the Hassan Rouhani administration have denied that the president stormed out of a meeting in anger after being criticized for the Geneva walk shared by Iran's top nuclear negotiator and the US secretary of state.
News that President Hassan Rouhani stormed out of a meeting has been denied by the administration and other officials present. Allegedly, Rouhani was upset that his foreign policy team had come under fire over a controversial stroll shared by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Hesam al-Din Ashna, Rouhani’s cultural adviser, told Tasnim News Agency, “At the latest session of the Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution, there was no tension. The president was present until the end of the meeting and he did not quit the meeting.”
On Jan. 25, the Entekhab website reported that Rouhani abruptly left a meeting at the Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution (SCCR) when council members began to criticize his administration for the walk on the sidelines of the Jan. 14 nuclear negotiations in Geneva. The 15-minute stroll along the Rhone River has angered some Iranian conservatives, who cannot attack the nuclear negotiations directly in out of respect for the supreme leader’s support and have instead criticized the negotiation team's tactics.
The stroll and the backlash received so much coverage that 21 members of parliament have summoned the foreign minister to explain the incident. The parliamentarians called the walk and Zarif’s trip to France at a time when French officials expressed support for Charlie Hebdo magazine's publishing images of the Prophet Muhammad “two diplomatic mistakes.”
