Iranian Vice President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei has been summoned by parliament for having made pro-Israeli comments, Iran's ISNA news agency reported Tuesday. The cultural commission of the parliament has called for a special session on Wednesday with Rahim-Mashaei for him to reply to "questions, ambiguities and criticism" by the deputies over the comments.
The vice-president, who is in charge of cultural heritage and tourism, had said "Iran wants no war with any country, and today Iran is friend of the United States and even Israel.... Our achievements belong to the whole world and should be used for expanding love and peace." He reiterated this position again on Monday.
Reacting to Rahim-Mashaei's comments, parliament speaker Ali Larijani on Monday reiterated that Iran was no friend of the Israelis.
The reaction by the parliament and Larijani was surprising as the Vice President's remarks are in line with the stance of Iran's Islamic system, which distinguishes peoples from governments, including political arch-foes Israel and the United States. Even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has earned himself international notoriety for his frequent verbal assaults on Israel, has several times stressed that he was addressing the Israeli administration and not the Jews, and hence rejected charges of being anti-Semitic.