There’s nothing like a nice walk through a charming European city with a new friend. That is, unless you’re Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif and your pal is Secretary of State John Kerry.
Zarif has been summoned before his country’s parliament to explain what hardliner critics have dubbed his stroll with “Satan” during nuclear negotiations in Geneva earlier this month, Reuters reported.
"Given the Great Satan's endless demands and sabotage during the course of the nuclear negotiations, there is no conceivable ground for intimacy between the foreign ministers of Iran and America," 21 members of parliament said in a petition calling on Zarif to explain himself. "Your exhibitionist walk together with [Kerry] along Geneva sidewalks was certainly outside the norms of diplomacy, so why don't you put a stop to such behavior?"
Kerry and Zarif went on the 15-minute walk down a sidewalk in the Swiss city during the talks on Jan. 14. The negotiations — which also include representatives from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China — are aimed at ending the standstill between the West and Iran over its nuclear program.
Zarif defended himself to reporters, according to Al-Monitor, saying those who criticized his walk are aiming to use it as a partisan issue.
Zarif said he and Kerry decided to go on the walk because the talks were intense with few breaks, and there was no garden area at the hotel where they could step outside for a breather.
"I've said many times that the negotiations are a national movement, not a partisan movement," he said, according to Al-Monitor. "I expect our friends not to sacrifice national interests for partisan considerations."
Diplomats who attended the latest round of negotiations said the talks produced slight progress but many differences between the two sides remain.
This is not the first time that Zarif's more moderate diplomatic moves have landed him in hot water with Iranian hardliners.
He caused a stir last year when he publicly acknowledged the Holocaust, calling it a "tragedy." Hardline conservatives in the country deny that the Holocaust occurred.
Meanwhile, President Obama is fighting a bipartisan effort back home over threats from Congress to impose new sanctions on Tehran. In his State of the Union address Tuesday, Obama said that if Congress passed new sanctions it will "all but guarantee" the negotiations would fail. He threatened to veto any new sanctions bill.