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Sunday, September 05, 2004
Iran Slaps Belgian Royals Over Choice of Godfather
September 05, 2004
AFP
Yahoo News
TEHRAN -- Iran's Islamic regime hit out at the Belgian royal family for choosing the son of its ousted shah to be a godfather of one of its latest additions.
"The issue of godfathering a child is not very important to talk about, but it is surprising how the Belgians of all people have chosen an incompetent person for this job," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
"However it's their business and we will have nothing to do with it."
Princess Louise, the eighth grand daughter of the Belgian King Albert II, was baptised Saturday with Reza Pahlavi, the late Iranian shah's eldest son, as her unofficial godfather.
The little princess, born in February, had to wait seven months to be baptised due to her father's controversial choice.
Soon after the birth of his daughter, Prince Laurent -- the king's youngest son -- announced he had a "Muslim friend" with whom "he wished to entrust the role of the godfather".
The US-based Pahlavi is a friend of Prince Laurent and his wife Princess Claire.
The decision has worried the Belgian government, which did not want a crisis with Tehran. Moreover Catholic law does not recognise godfathers of other religions, meaning he was eventually named as an unofficial godfather.
Iran's clerical regime, founded after the 1979 ouster of the Iranian royal family, is quick to speak out against the family getting any kind of official recognition.
In May Iran lodged an official complaint with Jordan after Farah Diba, the widow of the ousted Iranian shah, was invited to the wedding reception of Crown Prince Hamza bin Hussein to his distant cousin, Princess Noor.
In the same month the invitation of both Farah Diba and her son to the marriage of Spain's Crown Prince Felipe de Bourbon and former television news presenter Letizia Ortiz sparked a mini-crisis between Tehran and Madrid.
link to original article
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