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EU Foreign Minister Josep Borell and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javar Zarif were scheduled to give an introductory speech at the Europe-Iran business forum scheduled for December 14-16.
More than 3,300 participants registered for the online conference, which would have focused on economic opportunities in Iran.
Scoring against Iran
But after the execution of Iranian journalist and activist Ruhollah Zam, voices have been raised to cancel the conference, including through an online campaign demanding that the EU suspend its participation. What has happened now.
On Sunday, the conference organizers released a statement stating that the meeting is postponed for the future. The statement does not indicate any reason why it is moving, just a hope that the event may take place in the “near future”.
Diplomatic sources tell SVT Nyheter that the decision to cancel the conference was taken by EU representatives, as a signal against the execution of Ruhollah Zam.
The information appears to be confirmed by the French Foreign Ministry, which writes on Twitter that the ambassadors of France, Germany, Italy and Austria in Iran are canceling their participation as a result of the “barbaric and unacceptable execution.”
Earlier on Sunday, the German and French ambassadors were summoned to Iran’s Foreign Ministry to answer for the “anti-Iranian” statements that followed Saturday’s execution.
Lived in exile
Ruhollah Zam lived in exile in Paris from where he ran the AmadNews news site. A site that repeatedly criticized Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He was arrested during a trip to Iraq last year and then taken to Iran, where he was brought to justice and later sentenced to death, among other things for inciting violence during protests critical of the regime that rocked Iran in 2017.
