An Afternoon at the Iranian Mission

Photo with the Iranian diplomats, stolen from the UN intern newsletter.

I went to visit the Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations the other day with a group of interns. A UN mission is sort of like an embassy, just to the UN instead of a country. The visit was pleasant enough, with refreshments and free promotional material, and the Iranians had set aside a lot of time to answer our questions.

The tone of the meeting was set when the opening question from a member of our group was about Iran’s nuclear technology. I loosely quote a part of the answer one of the diplomats gave:

“We all agree that a knife is dangerous, but what is a kitchen without a knife? It is the same with nuclear power. We need it to generate electricity for farming, hospitals and so on… And we need to make our neighbours think we’re dangerous – look where we are positioned on the map”.

And equally uncomfortable questions followed with themes such as divorce, women’s rights, the Iran-United States relationship, and stoning:

“There is no stoning in Iran. And if there is, the stones are a lot smaller than described in western media. Besides, a person should feel harm when he or she betrays his significant other, no?"

I have to give them credit for answering everything though. We asked some pretty sensitive questions that I know were not received as openly at some of the other missions.

Moment of the day: One of the diplomats was solemnly explaining how they were not allowed to go further than 20 miles (or something like that) from the Iranian Mission or they would get in trouble with US immigration, to which one girl blurts “but what if you want to go shopping!?”