Iran’s FM Zarif says he coordinated everything with slain commander Soleimani

Al-Arabia- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Sunday he coordinated regional matters with slain Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Soleimani on a weekly basis.

“I met with him (Soleimani) every week and we coordinated. On regional issues, whatever we did, was coordinated,” Zarif told a session of parliament.

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Soleimani, who headed the IRGC’s Quds Force, was killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport on January 3.

“Those who know martyr Soleimani, those who know [the Lebanese Hezbollah’s Secretary-General] Hassan Nasrallah, and those who know the resistance movements of Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, they know how our relations were, not you,” Zarif added, which some lawmakers took offense to.

MPs then began interrupting Zarif, accusing the foreign minister of “insulting” them.

In response, Zarif said he would never insult the “representatives of the nation,” stating: “You should know that we are all in the same boat.”

The foreign minister added that the US does not distinguish between the different political factions in Iran and views them all as the same.

The incident happened during Zarif’s first address to Iran’s new parliament which convened in May.

The new parliament is dominated by MPs who oppose many of the policies of President Hassan Rouhani’s administration.