Iranian American Forum, 12 October 2013

The last Friday prayer was used as a stage against the Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. The main speaker Ahmad Khatami, close to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, asked Zarif to admit publicly that some mistakes were made during the New York trip where Rouhani talked to Obama and Zarif met with Kerry.

The prayer speaker was referring to the Supreme Leader’s remarks last week when he publicly criticized the trip and declared: “Some events were not appropriate in New York.”

In his speech, Khatami said, “You should not be afraid of transparency. When the Supreme Leader declared that some acts were not appropriate in New York, therefore, the foreign minister has to admit to these mistakes, because the foreign ministers are appointed to execute Supreme Leader’s policy recommendations.”

These infightings among factions take place only a week before the important nuclear negotiations between the Iranian regime and p5+1 in Geneva. Friday prayer event forced Zarif to call on all factions to understand the urgency and maintain the national consensus ahead of Geneva talks. The post on Zarif’s Facebook page says, “An important job awaits us next week, and it needs internal consensus and national rapport more than anything.”

While the regime needs unity among factions to strengthen its negotiation team, but on the contrary, the infighting seems unstoppable and takes alarming pace ahead of crucial decisions on the future of nuclear program.