Iranian Minister Leaves Diplomatic Dinner Over Red Dress

Iranian Minister Leaves Diplomatic Dinner Over Red Dress

www.alertnet.org

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, May 4 (Reuters) - Iran's foreign Minister abruptly left a dinner where he was to sit opposite U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, complaining that a red dress worn by an entertainer was too revealing, a U.S. official said on Friday.

Expectations had been high that Rice might use a dinner held on the sidelines of an Iraq conference on Thursday to get to know Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, but instead the foreign minister left as guests were being seated

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I doubt the red dress had anything to do with it. I'm sure Iran is just going through the motions and really has no interest in talks about Iraq.

www.alertnet.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

They are a very conservative bunch, the old Iranians.

Their President has just been lambasted in the Iranian press for kissing the hand of his old school teacher:

Iran's president has come under fire from a conservative newspaper after he publicly kissed the hand of a woman who used to be his school teacher.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative by the standards of Iranian politics, was attacked by the Hezbollah newspaper for acting "contrary to Sharia law".

Source - BBC

Seems to be the Iranian bigwigs as opposed to the average person in the street, however. I'm not sure if you picked up on the stories over recent weeks of a 'clamp down' on 'immodest dress' worn by females, for instance. Ordered by the government of course.

You would have thought that the people who arranged the enterainment would be aware of the guests and their preferences and made suitable arrangments as to not offend any party attending the dinner.

This would be SOP for the cultural advisors.

The red dress is a huge red herring.

"I am not sure which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack of the incident.

Truly a man of diplomacy. These guys are clowns. Why put out such a statement from the State Department if you are trying to have talks?