with “Bahrain” in Egyptian President Morsi’s speech at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran.
The “official protest memorandum” was filed with Tehran’s charge d’affaires and “requested the Iranian government apologize for this act, and take the necessary action to correct the breach and ensure that actions like this one don’t happen again,” according the Bahraini statement.
In his speech, Egyptian President Morsi praised the people of Syria for their stance against the Assad regime and never mentioned Bahrain.
“The Palestinian and Syrian people are fighting for freedom, justice and dignity,” Morsi said. While the speech caused the visiting Syrian delegation to walk out, the translation provoked Bahraini ire.
Several Iranian channels broadcast Morsi’s speech, but the Bahraini statement didn’t make clear which station it was referring to. The AFP has verified that IRINN used the official interpretation of the speech, “which clearly mentioned Syria.”
Channel One, which also broadcast the speech, used its own interpreter “who may have substituted the word ‘Syria’ with ‘Bahrain,’” AFP cited Al Jazeera as reporting.
Relations between Iran and Bahrain have remained tense lately, as the Arab state’s small Sunni ruling family has sought to quell the majority Shia protesters, whom Iran supports. In this context, the interpretation issue is especially prickly for the two countries in addition to apparently misrepresenting President Morsi’s remarks.
Bahraini government news agency, BNA, had strong condemnatory reporting against the gaffe. “This is a violation, fabrication and unacceptable media behavior that shows how Iranian media is interfering in Bahrain’s internal affairs,” BNA said.
For its part, the Gulf Cooperation Council also condemned the translation error, saying it came from Channel 1.
The head of Iran’s state media pushed back and said only one media channel broadcast the erroneous interpretation. “In a verbal mistake, this translated said ‘Bahrain’ instead of ‘Syria’ and this became a pretext for Western media,” Mehr News Agency quoted Ezzatollah Zarghami.
But the media wars didn’t end there. Egyptian newspapers jumped into the fray, reporting that President Morsi was also misquote as wishing for the “continuation of the Syrian regime.”
Iran’s response was neither an apology to Bahrain nor an expression of remorse to Morsi. Many may have expected a high-ranking government official to clarify a gaffe like that involving important geopolitical sensitivities and heads of state. But the Iranian response came from the deputy foreign minister who suggested Morsi wasn’t well informed about Syria.
“Many of Morsi’s views accord with Iran’s and it’s only in some issues like Syria that he has different views. If Morsi had more information about Syria, he would change his views,” Husain Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as saying.