A senior Iranian cleric says the Iranian nation will not let the European Union (EU) open a representative office in Tehran.
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“They (the EU) must learn a lesson from the closure of the US spy den because this people will not let another spy den be set up in Iran,” Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahhedi Kermani told worshippers at weekly Friday Prayers in Tehran.
The Iranian cleric was referring to the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 by a group of revolutionary Iranian university students who believed that the diplomatic mission had turned into a den of espionage that aimed to overthrow the nascent Islamic Republic.
Last December, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) said EU countries had informally requested the parliament to open an embassy in Iran to facilitate more “open exchange.”
The Iranian cleric also dismissed as “shameless” the adoption by the European Parliament of a resolution on the human rights situation in Iran.
“It is very shameful. They are showing maximum shamefulness and immodesty. They are expressing strange expectations and accusations and claim that human rights are not respected in Iran,” Ayatollah Movahhedi Kermani stated.
On Thursday, the European Parliament passed a resolution on the EU’s strategy toward Iran.
In the motion, the parliament expressed concern over the alleged violation of human rights in Iran.
It also claimed that Iran’s presidential election in June 2013, which led to the victory of President Hassan Rouhani, was “not held according to the democratic standards valued by the EU.”
Iran has dismissed the resolution as unrealistic and counterproductive at a time when the Islamic Republic and the European Union have taken initial steps to resolve the existing problems in their relations. /SR
