British, Russian diplomats draw ire from Iran for imitating famous 1943 photo

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Aug. 12 (UPI) — British and Russian diplomats have angered Iran by posing for a photo this week that mimicked the 1943 Tehran Conference that was held during World War II, when Iran was occupied territory.

The Russian Embassy in Iran tweeted the photo on Wednesday.

Russian Ambassador Leven Dzhagaryan and British Ambassador Simon Shercliff are in the photo, in the respective places occupied by Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The middle chair, occupied in the historical photo by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, was empty, as the United States has no diplomatic offices in Iran.

“I saw an extremely inappropriate picture today,” Iran’s outgoing Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted. “Need I remind all that Aug. 2021 is neither Aug. 1941 nor Dec. 1943.

“The Iranian people have shown … that their destiny can NEVER be subject to decisions in foreign embassies or by foreign powers.”

Iran officials told The Jerusalem Post they were outraged by the photo, and Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting said the photo brought up “the days of occupation and humiliation of the Iranian nation.”

A Tehran English literature professor, Seyed Marandi, told The Guardian that the British and Russian diplomats were “insulting all Iranians” by recreating the photo.

“The ambassadors are insulting all Iranians,” Marandi said. “The Tehran conference was a violation of Iranian sovereignty and symbolic of the historic crimes committed by the U.S., Russia and the U.K. against Iranians.”

The Russian Embassy responded by saying it intended no harm.

“We would like to note that it does not have any anti-Iranian context,” the Russian Embassy tweeted. “We were not going to offend the feelings of the friendly Iranian people.

“The only meaning that this photo has to pay tribute to the joint efforts of the allied states against Nazism during the Second World War.”

The 1943 Tehran Conference resulted in an agreement to open a second allied front against Germany in 1944. At the time, Iran was led by Mohammad Reza Shah, who was a Western ally until the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The conference was also intended to guarantee post-war independence and boundaries for Iran.

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