Iran summons Polish envoy
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Angered by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement that Poland will host an international conference on Iran in mid-February, Iranian authorities on Sunday summoned Warsaw’s top diplomat in the country and called off a Polish film festival.
The moves followed a tweet by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who denounced the upcoming summit as America’s anti-Iran “circus.”
Pompeo is currently on a Mideast tour, bringing the Trump administration’s anti-Iran message to the region.
Speaking Sunday on a visit to Qatar as part of the tour, said he hoped the meeting in Poland will allow the world to see “the enormous coalition that is prepared to assist in creating stability and peace here in the Middle East.” “We’ll work on many issues including how it is we can get the Islamic Republic of Iran to behave more like a normal nation,” Pompeo said.
On Friday, he told Fox News before departing from Cairo that an international conference on Iran and the Middle East will take place in Poland on Feb. 13-14. Among the Mideast leaders invited was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose attendance might complicate participation by some Arab countries. A senior Israeli official could not comment on whether Netanyahu would attend.
The official IRNA news agency said Iran conveyed its protest over Warsaw hosting the conference to Poland’s Chargé d’Affaires Wojciech Unolt, demanding that Poland not side with this “hostile move” by the United States.