Iranian foreign minister’s visit still to be confirmed
Federal Labor MP Michael Danby has criticised Foreign Minister Julie Bishop for welcoming Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Jahav Zarif who is reported to be coming to Australia next week.
The visit, widely reported in overseas media, has not been confirmed by Australia’s Foreign Minister.
A spokesperson for Julie Bishop told J-Wire: “The usual protocol is for Foreign Ministers to announce their own travel plans.
Mohammad Javad Zarif
Australia’s Foreign Minster makes such formal announcements prior to every overseas trip, but not that of visiting Foreign Ministers.”
Julie Bishop
Danby has said: “This is not someone that the foreign minister should be welcoming to Australia.”
He continued, “Any former government would have said something about the illegal Iranian missile tests, the antisemitic Holocaust denying cartoon competition, the siege of Aleppo. Ms Bishop has self-censored herself. Even the soft-on-Iran Obama Administration protested the missile tests in October and December.”
“Notwithstanding Ms Bishop’s attempts to get into Iran’s good graces so as to sign trade and asylum seeker deals, Iran continues to violate human rights on a massive scale. Through arbitrary detention, harsh sentences and physical violence, it prevents freedom of expression of religious, ethnic and LGBTI minorities. It cracks down on political expression of those not to the liking of the ruling elite. There have never been as many public executions.”
Michael Danby
“It steals elections, prevents Baha’is from tertiary education and executes minors.”
“It exports terrorism around the world-from Asia to South America, from Europe to the Middle East-few regions have been left untouched by the terror and violence of Iran and its proxies.”
“It arms, funds and trains Hezbollah, which has long attacked Israel, and is now killing its way through Syria. As I speak, Iranian, Hezbollah, Syrian and Russian forces are besieging and bombarding 300,000 civilians in Syria’s second largest city.”
“Even the Gulf countries have recently joined Australia, Britain, the US and Europe in classifying the Iranian satraps Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.”
“One really has to question whether anything that Iran has done justifies this unseemingly going from their throats two years to their feet today.”
The New Zealand Herald has reported that FM Zarif will visit Wellington next week.
The problem is being swept under the carpet and the solution is the can that is being kicked down the road.
In this part of the world carpets tend to lift off….