Iranian Foreign Ministry Summons Polish Diplomat Over 'Anti-Iran' Summit

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned Sunday Poland's charge d'affaires to lodge Tehran's protest over an upcoming "anti-Iran" international summit on the Middle East. The summit is slated to be held in Poland in mid-February at Washington’s initiative and is regarded by Iran as a "hostile move", the ministry stated.

"The head of the First Eastern Europe Department at the Iranian Foreign Ministry told the Polish charge d'affaires that the upcoming conference was a hostile move by the United States against the Islamic Republic of Iran and that Poland was expected to refrain from cooperating with the United States on holding this conference", the statement, published on the ministry's official website, said, adding that the diplomat had been summoned "in protest against the anti-Iran conference".

According to the statement, the Polish diplomat, for his part, said that the summit’s agenda was not anti-Iranian and that Warsaw's stance on the issue was different from recent statements made by US officials.

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The head of the department at the Iranian Foreign Ministry insisted, however, that the Polish government should take immediate measures or "the Islamic Republic [of Iran] will have to take retaliatory measures".

On Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would hold an international summit in Poland on 13-14 February to discuss cooperation on achieving stability and security in the Middle East. The secretary emphasized that the participants would also debate on how to make sure Iran was not a "destabilising influence" in the region.

Commenting on the issue, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif slammed the upcoming event as a "desperate anti-Iran circus."