HUFFINGTON POST -- After sparking a furor in Washington with a letter signed by fellow Republican senators warning Iran against nuclear diplomacy with the Obama administration, Senator Tom Cotton went to the extra trouble of having his message translated into Farsi for Iranian leaders. Among his targets: Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Cotton needn’t have bothered with the translation. Zarif is more than capable of reading the Republicans’ letter in English. He attended San Francisco State University, Columbia University and University of Denver
.Zarif answered that it was Cotton and the other senators who signed his letter who lack understanding: “The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations.”
AFP photo/Samuel Kubani