France National Assembly president postpones Iran visit after terror attack

The president of the French lower house of parliament has postponed his planned trip to Iran in the wake of a deadly terrorist attack in southern France.

“Following the terrorist incidents in France, a visit by the head of the French National Assembly and his accompanying delegation, which was due to be made tomorrow (Saturday), has been postponed,” the public relations office of the Iranian parliament (Majlis) announced on Friday.

Claude Bartolone had been due to make the four-day trip at the invitation of Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.

Post-JCPOA visits

The French parliamentarian had been scheduled to meet with Larijani and other senior Iranian officials to discuss ways to bolster bilateral cooperation months after the implementation of the nuclear agreement between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries.

Less than a month ago, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Paris and held meetings with French authorities, including President Francois Hollande, his counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault, and Senate President Gerard Larcher.

Senior officials from Iran and many countries across the world exchanged visits after the Islamic Republic and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia – plus Germany started implementing the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on January 16.

Under the deal, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US would be lifted. Iran has, in return, put some limitations on its nuclear activities.

Terror hits France again

On Thursday night, a driver drove a truck at high speed into a large crowd of people who had gathered for Bastille Day fireworks in the southern French city of Nice, killing at least 84 people, including children.

The truck plowed into the crowd over a distance of some two kilometers on the Promenade des Anglais while hitting people, including children, who were celebrating the Bastille Day, which is a national holiday.

France has declared three days of mourning beginning from Saturday and extended the state of emergency that has been in place since the November attacks in Paris and was due to be lifted on July 26.

Iran has condemned the fatal incident in Nice as a “criminal terrorist attack” and extended sympathy to the French nation over the tragic deaths.

In a Friday statement, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi described terrorism as “an ominous phenomenon, which could not be dealt with except through international cooperation and consensus.”

“In confronting terror, any negligence and [resort to] double standards are morally wrong and doomed to failure,” the Iranian official added.

France has been hit by a series of terror attacks by Daesh over the past 18 months but nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the Thursday attack in Nice.

The state of emergency was imposed after assailants struck at least six different venues in and around Paris on November 13, 2015. The terrorist attacks, claimed by Daesh Takfiris, left 130 people dead and over 350 others wounded.

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