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Iran complains to Jordan over wedding invite for ousted royals
Sun May 30, 9:10 AM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo!
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran has lodged an official complaint with Jordan after Farah Diba, the widow of the ousted Iranian shah, was invited to the wedding of Crown Prince Hamza bin Hussein to his distant cousin, Princess Noor, the Iranian foreign ministry said.
AFP/File Photo
"The foreign ministry has summoned the Jordanian charge d'affaires to protest this invitation. It was an unjustifiable gesture. There were people invited who have no status in their own country," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
He said the Jordanian diplomat, Nayef al-Zidan, was hauled in for a moan on Saturday, and Asefi also warned that the invitation of Farah Diba, the widow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, "will have repercussions on the relations between our two countries."
The spokesman gave no details on what the consequences would be.
The widow of the shah, ousted by Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979, was among 2,500 guests -- who also included a number of European royals -- at a garden party in Amman Thursday.
Iran's complaint comes after the invitation of both Farah Diba and her son to the marriage a week ago of Spain's Crown Prince Felipe de Bourbon and former television news presenter Letizia Ortiz sparked a mini-crisis between Tehran and Madrid.
In protest, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi delayed a visit to Spain for talks with Spanish leaders by a day.
The widow of the ex-shah, who is 66, and her son now live in exile in France and the United States. In memoires published several months ago, Farah Diba did not hide her desire to one day return to Iran, while her son continues to lay claim to the throne.
Although the pair have in the past been frequent features on international royal guest lists, this is the first time Iran's clerical rulers have complained so vigorously.