Zarif: EP Lacks Authority To Sabotage Iran-West Rapprochement

Tehran, April 7, IRNA - Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Sunday rebuked the European Parliament for passing anti-Iran resolution and said that EP lacks the authority to sabotage rapprochement between Iran and the West. He told the members of Majlis Commission on Foreign Policy and National Security Commission that Israel in desperation has used the EP to sabotage the nuclear talks between Iran and the western governments, but, the body can only issue a resolution and all. He made it clear that the international law does not let the EP to intervene in Iranian national affairs and the Iranian government will strongly thwart the propaganda manuever of the European Parliament. The status of the European parliament at international relations is marginal and they are not in a position to give comments about others, he said. The foreign minister said that the European governments have failed to display an acceptable record about human rights in the past and do not deserve the right to talk about human rights citing the massacre of people in Bosnia in 1990s and discrimination against the Muslims in the European countries. He said that the EP denies membership to the Muslim states in the European community, so how it can talk about the human rights. All witnessed human catastrophes in Europe and a group of hardliners have not the authority to give comments about other nations and their civilizations at a time when they perpetrated war crimes and genocide. Elaborating on illegitimate status of the hardliners in the European Parliament, Zarif said MEPs have been elected with an average of 43 percent universal suffrage in the latest parliamentary election in Europe and they lack the authority to judge and give comments about Iranˈs presidential election in which over 73 percent of the universal suffrage took part in June 2013. They should understand that the great Iranian nation calls for mutual respect and equal footing with other countries and never accepts any interference or insult from others, he said./end