Speaker: European Resolution on Iran Disgraceful

Addressing a group of the Iranian parliamen’s staff here in Tehran on Saturday, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani slammed what he called a “disgraceful move” by the European Parliament (EP) to adopt a biased resolution on Iran.

On Thursday, April 3, the EP passed a resolution expressing grave concern over the human rights situation in Iran and the “continued, systemic violation of fundamental rights” in the country, and called on the members of the European Union to “mainstream human rights in all of its relations with Iran.”

The politically-tainted resolution has also claimed that the presidential elections in Iran in July 2013 “were not held according to the democratic standards valued by the EU.”

Blaming the European body for its short-sightedness, Larijani underlined that such behavior is a clear sign of the MEPs’ limited and flawed understanding of Iran’s internal affairs.

The speaker said those who have drafted the resolution might have been deceived by others, however, he criticized the Europeans for making such “wrong remarks” about the last year’s presidential elections, which he likened to a “political epic” by Iranians.

In relevant comments on Friday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham deplored the biased resolution as “baseless, invalid and unacceptable.”

She also blamed the recent move, which she said aimed at damaging the relations between Iran and Europe, on a certain stratum of extremist MEPs, under the influence of the Zionist lobbies and opponents of the Islamic Republic.