Iranian social media users attacked a meme by government-run media quoting Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif saying that Iran will “survive” the US sanctions reimposed after President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal.
At Rome Med 2018—Mediterranean Dialogues, a conference held Nov. 22-24, Zarif was reminded, “You’ve insisted many times that Iran has survived since 1979,” which prompted him to respond, “We haven’t survived since 1979, we’ve survived 7 millennia.” To the laugher and applause of the audience, he added, jovially, “I’m in Italy, so I can say that Italians and Iranians have had empires that have lasted longer than the entire life of some countries.”
