LONDON: Breaking from the international community’s outpouring of sorrow and commiserations after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Iran’s leadership has remained silent while state media has issued offensive remarks about the British monarch.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and hardline President Ebrahim Raissi have failed to offer condolences to Charles III, the new king of the UK, or the British people since her death was announced on Thursday.
The Foreign Ministry has also stayed silent, leaving Iran as a major international outlier as foreign governments and leaders paid their respects.
The Iranian media, however, has issued several statements, with the Fars News Agency attacking her “bloody legacy to humanity.”
The agency published an article outlining the supposed evils of the queen, listing supposed actions against states such as Egypt, Iran, Yemen and Afghanistan.
It claimed that the monarch used questionable methods to improve her personal wealth, and slammed the cost of her state funeral.
Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne in June 1952, and has been regularly attacked by Iranian leaders since the coup in Tehran that took place a year later, which was supported by Britain and the US to depose the prime minister and strengthen the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The shah was a friend of the queen, whom the Iranian regime described as “the last survivor” of those involved in the 1953 coup.
She did not have any connection to the MI6 and CIA operation to support the Iranian monarchy in 1953, but conspiracy theories have remained popular among some elements of Iranian society, according to Borzou Daragahi, international correspondent for The Independent.
The shah visited Britain and met Queen Elizabeth before the revolution that deposed the Iranian monarchy in 1979.
The queen visited Iran in 1961, with the shah naming a street in central Tehran after her. The name was changed after the revolution.
While the Iranian leadership has remained silent since her passing, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah, issued a statement offering his family’s condolences.
“In her reign as the world’s longest serving monarch she served as an honorable and noble force for both justice and progress and for continuity and unity for her nation,” he said in a statement.
“She will be remembered for this and with abiding respect for her service to the United Kingdom and her people,” added Pahlavi, who is based in the US, where he is an opposition activist to the Iranian regime.
