2023-06-20 07:32:00
François De Smet, president of Défi, was the Alex Reed at 7:50 this morning on Bel RTL. Interviewed by Loïc Parmentier, he returned to the affair of the Iranian and Russian delegations in Brussels, which led to the resignation of the Brussels Secretary of State Pascal Smet (Vooruit)
Part of the federal opposition on Sunday urged Hadja Lahbib (MR) to do the same. The minister is indeed under fire from the critics because it is the Foreign Affairs which granted a visa to the two delegations, whereas on March 20, a senior official of the department advised once morest this visit.
“I find that the granting of these 13 visas and this visit is a slap in the face to Iranian women who have been losing their lives for months, it is a slap in the face to the democratic opposition of this country, it is a slap in the face to Western hostages still being held. Iran is a country that murders its youth, imprisons its opponents, even takes our own nationals hostage. So I think it’s a diplomatic disaster, ”declared François De Smet at the microphone of RTL.
It also supports the accountability of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. “You can return it in any direction: the issuance of visas is a federal competence. Her administration would have preferred that she not issue them. She ended up delivering them following a mysterious 4-minute phone call with Pascal Smet. She explains to us at the same time that she delivered them because Mr. Smet insisted, while telling us in parliament last week, that the visit of these Iranians is a shame and that it tarnishes the image of Brussels. That’s what’s wrong, it’s the question of consistency.
Read also Invitation from the mayor of Tehran: Pascal Smet resigns, pressure on Hadja Lahbib
In addition, the president of DéFI affirmed that: “There is a very important moment, it is tomorrow. Mrs Labib will come to the committee, I believe she will have to answer a certain number of questions, a certain number of emails and productions which were given by Pascal Smet during his own committee. And there we will take a stand. But I say it already: if she does not come with an extremely strong and more convincing justification than last Thursday, we will have no other choice but to ask her to draw the conclusions.
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