How did the Iranians view Pompeo's visit to Tehran?

Al Jazeera Net - Tehran

The Iranians were divided over the request of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to visit Tehran and speak directly to the Iranian media, between welcoming and questioning his offer, to the categorical rejection, in the position of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has previously declared that there are no negotiations with Washington.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif commented on his American counterpart's request that the American side had missed the opportunity to talk to the Iranians. "If American leaders intend to talk to the Iranian people, they should respond to previous requests to talk to them," he said.

The spokesman for his ministry, Abbas Moussaoui, considered the American demand "a defensive action on Iran's offensive measures," and questioned the seriousness of the offer, similar to the announcement of the Trump administration's intention to negotiate with Tehran, he said.

"We will not be deterred from hearing the other opinion, what they did with our correspondents and their actions with Iranian journalists there, a kind of disrespect for the media and the principle of dialogue," Moussaoui said.

Welcome and declined
For his part, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabie said that Pompeo can talk to the correspondent of Press, satisfactory of Hashemi, stressing that "we do not get away from this subject, and we are not afraid to hear the other opinion."

Hours after a spring proposal, he ran into the Iranian TV administration's refusal. The head of the media department of Iran's radio and television, Bayman Jebali, said there was no plan for the Press to interview the US Secretary of State.

Correspondent Melanie Franklin, born in the United States, who changed her name to Masha Hashmi when she converted to Islam and married an Iranian, also rejected a spring proposal.

"My methodology is that of the Imam (Khomeini)," she wrote at the expense of Instagram. "I will not take a step on it and I will not be late for it." The letter was accompanied by a statement by the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini on the hostility in US-Iranian relations.

She was suspended on January 13 in Missouri, according to a law that allows for the arrest of potential witnesses in criminal cases.

Parliament split
While reformist MP Ali Motahari welcomed the Pompeo proposal, the former head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian Parliament, Hishmatullah, said that Pompio was a professor of psychological warfare and was not fit to be present in the Islamic Republic, asserting that the hostility of the US minister towards Iran was clear to the Iranians.

Former Minister of Culture and Guidance Syed Mohammad Hosseini, however, scorned Pompeo for his new position, which contradicts his previous positions on the Iranians. "If the Iranian people are a terrorist, then how dare you travel to Iran and talk to the media and the people?"

The paradox between Zarif and Pompeo
"The US government is not forcing the media to interview Zarif, and the Iranian government can not even force the media to interview Pompeo, and Zarif did not ask for any means," Hosamuddin Ashna, adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rowhani, said on Twitter. The media has a dialogue with him, but is an attractive figure for the American media, and Pompeo should try to be more attractive to the Iranian media. "

Observers in Iran believe that Pompeo's request was an implicit acknowledgment of the failure of the Iranian-backed opposition media. According to Iranian media, America, Britain and Saudi Arabia are spending billions of dollars on dozens of channels opposed to the Persian-speaking Iranian regime.

At the level of the Iranian media, conservative journalist Mohammed Mohajeri asked his government to approve Pompeo's offer. He suggested that the chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the parliament, Mujtaba Zul-Nur, and the Dean of the Yekin College, Governor Hassan Abbasi, should hold a dialogue with the US Secretary of State.

"Then we will see that hardliners from the Iranian and American sides do not understand each other's logic in an amazing way, and they will reach an understanding," Mahajri said.

For his part, Iranian researcher in American affairs, Amir Ali Abu al-Fath, attributed the reason for Pompey's request to "the effectiveness of Iranian diplomacy." He stressed that Zarif's exposure to the "four girls' team" and their role in Trump's policy showed that the American media brought the voice of the Iranian minister General.

As for the objectives of Pompeo, who asked to visit Iran and talk to the Iranian media, Abu al-Fath said that Trump's policies over the past two years have angered all segments of the Iranian people. Therefore, his foreign minister is trying to address the Iranians to tell them that the pressure on them is the corruption of the Iranian regime and the spending of their money. Syria and Yemen.

The US researcher pointed out that Washington has reached the need to activate public diplomacy along with the policy of iron fist, in order to find cracks in Iranian society and separated from his leadership.