-Updated Below-
Democrats and “Maverick” (anti-Bush) Republican Senators held private talks recently with a representative of Iranian Regime.
A group of US senators even met with the Iranian UN ambassador last night!
Fars News reported this today:
“We take the United States responsible for the abduction of our diplomats and we take the Iraqi government responsible for their release,” Mottaki stressed.
Asked about a meeting between Iran’s envoy to the United Nations Javad Zarif and some US Senators Saturday night, Mottaki said the meeting did not serve any specific purpose, but meantime added, “But certain individuals from outside the US administration have already had meetings with Zarif, where the two sides have mainly discussed the situation in Iraq and the security conditions in that country.”
Iranian Press TV added this on the meeting Saturday night:
The foreign minister also confirmed that a meeting did indeed take place between Iran’s envoy to the United Nations Javad Zarif and several US senators on Saturday.
Mottaki stated that “certain individuals outside the circle of the US administration met with Zarif.” The discussion, according to Mottaki, mostly revolved around “the current situation in Iraq and the security conditions in that country.”
In a love letter to regime official Zarif, who won’t shake a woman’s hand or wear a tie, in the Washington Post Robin Wright had this to say about the recent meetings between the regime responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans and US democrats:
“Zarif is a tough advocate but he’s also pragmatic, not dogmatic. He can play an important role in helping to resolve our significant differences with Iran peacefully,” Democrat Joe Biden said afterward. Noting his previous talks with the Iranian envoy, Republican Chuck Hagel called for “direct engagement” between Washington and Tehran. “Isolating nations does not fix problems,” Hagel said.
During Zarif’s talk with Democrat Dianne Feinstein, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican John Warner of the Armed Services Committee dropped by to have a word. “I find him to be a positive, reasonable figure, and it would be useful if he could stay at the U.N.,” Feinstein said later.
…Last year Zarif participated in a Princeton seminar — by video, as he could not get State Department permission to travel from New York — when he was pressed on Iran’s position on the Holocaust. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had just questioned whether it truly happened. As he has often said publicly, Zarif said he believed the Holocaust took place and that it was genocide and a crime against humanity. He then countered that the Palestinians should not have to pay the price for mass murder by the Germans. Only later did he learn that the questioner was Uri Lubrani, Israel’s envoy to Iran before the 1979 revolution.
when former secretary of state James A. Baker III was working on the Iraq Study Group report, he went to dinner at Zarif’s elegant diplomatic residence across from Central Park to talk about cooperation on Iraq. The most controversial section of the final report recommended diplomatic outreach to Iran and Syria to help stabilize Iraq.
The Bush administration remains skeptical. A senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says Zarif has presented a “user-friendly face” for the Iranian regime. “But the fact of the matter is that their behavior has belied his smooth diplomatic effort.”
Washington Post writer Robin Wright will miss Iranian ambassador Javad Zarif dearly.
Javad Zarif, Iranian envoy to the United Nations, was widely welcomed (by anti-Bush Senators) last month while in Washington. (WaPo)
Maybe the senators got around to asking the Iranian official about the thousands of Iraqi Shiites training in a camp south of Tehran?
…But, probably not.
Previously:
Pelosi is open to Iran trip
Pelosi Will Talk With Syria & Iran But Won’t Cross Street to Talk With Bush
Iran Announces It Is Preparing For Talks With Nancy Pelosi
Iranian News Confirms US Democrats Are Wanting to Talk
UPDATE: An Iranian reader sends this on Zarif and his connections in the US Congress:
This is just another article to launder the reputation of the outgoing mouthpiece of the rogue regime of the Mullahs. Javad Zarif – a close personal friend of now jailed Ohio congressman, Bob Ney –
Zarif is the slickest of all the con-men the Mullahs have sent out of Iran to pull the wool over the world’s eyes is clearly a favorite of those who wish turn a willful blind eye to the Mullahs; it is no wonder that D.C. dandies like Joseph Biden (whose Mullah-supporting Iranian buddies in Beverly Hills and Park Avenue, hold lavish fundraisers for him) and others like the gray eminence, James Baker, the ethically shaky career politicos of the Council on Foreign Relations and various other plutocrats will say and do anything to pave the way for yet another mismanaged policy of dealing with the most fascistic empire of psychopaths otherwise known as the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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