Vice President for Cultural Heritage and Tourism Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie of Iran
Trying to clarify his controversial statements that Iran is 'friends with the Israeli nation', Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie said the media had misrepresented his remarks adding that by Israelis he meant Palestinians and certainly not the Zionists, Press TV's Saman Kojouri reported.
yahooBuzzArticleSummary = "Tehran - Iranian Vice-President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie has come under fire over a video which shows him watching and applauding women dancing during a ceremony in Istanbul, the Tehran media reported Wednesday.
Mashaie said in mid-July that Iran is a "friend of the Israeli people.
That one was caused when, last summer, Mashaie said Iran is friends with the Israeli people.
Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie said here Sunday that Iran is pursuing the process of registering the Persian Gulf on the world heritage list.
Mashaie is not new to controversy.
Vice President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie is also in charge of Iran's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization.
From IRNA : Iran's Vice-President Rahim Mashaie said here Tuesday that Zionism's annihilation should turn into a global cause and demand.
Iranian Fars News reported: Iran's Vice-President Rahim Mashaie said Tuesday that Zionism's annihilation should turn into a global cause and demand.
From Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency Iran's Vice-President Rahim Mashaie said here Tuesday that Zionism's annihilation should turn into a global cause and demand.
IRNA reports Iran's Vice-President Rahim Mashaie has said that Zionism's annihilation should turn into a global cause and demand.
Rahim Mashaie is one of the figures closest to the president in the Iranian government.
This is not the first time Rahim Mashaie has been involved in controversy.
In a letter on Friday released after the Supreme Leader's sermon in this week's Friday prayers, Mashaie said his stance on the Palestinian occupied lands Concords with policies of the sacred Islamic Republic establishment, as defined and specified by the Supreme Leader.
It is preposterous to assume that any Iranian official would acknowledge the Zionist regime," Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie said in response to comments on his controversial remarks on Sunday.
We oppose the Zionist regime but we have no problem with the people residing in the occupied lands," Rahim-Mashaie was quoted by Fars News Agency as saying.
Rahim-Mashaie said that the Islamic Republic would not wage war on any country and that the Iranian government adhered to a doctrine of resistance.
Mashaie is one of 10 vice presidents and is immune from impeachment, according to the agency.
I had said this before that we do not have any hostility against the Israeli people and I still say the same thing proudly," Rahim Mashaie was quoted as saying by Kargozaran newspaper.
Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie said in the interview in Tokyo that any such meeting must be held in an open manner and its contents made public, the agency said.
Mashaie had sparked a minor controversy in Tehran when he said Iran was a friend of the Israeli people, without elaborating.
Tehran- Iranian Vice-President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie has come under fire over a video which shows him watching and applauding women dancing during a ceremony in Istanbul, the Tehran media reported Wednesday.
I have said before that we do not have any hostility against the Israeli people and I still say the same thing proudly," Mashaie said in remarks published in several local newspapers on Monday.
Mashaie is one of Ahmadinejad's closest allies and earlier this year his daughter married the president's son.
President-elect Barack Obama, the country's vice president said in an interview with Japan's Kyodo news agency Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie said in the interview in Tokyo that any such meeting must be.
Iran's Veep: We Have Something to SayI was told that Vice President Mashaie is a right hand man of Iran’s controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mashaie was hopeful that National Geographic magazine would tell the world that Iran is a country with a long history and that over the millennia its people have made innumerable contributions to science, art, literature, medicine, and many other fields.