Iran’s Foreign Ministry “strongly rejected” on Sunday the claim circulating among right-wing American blogs that Mehdi Zarif, son of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, attended the wedding of Vanessa Kerry, US Secretary of State John Kerry’s daughter, in 2009.
Some of the claims suggested the younger Zarif served as best man to Kerry’s bridegroom, Iranian-American physician Brian Vala Nahed.
The Foreign Ministry insisted that Mehdi Zarif’s presence was a “sheer lie and ‘news fabrication,'” the Fars News Agency said.
Vanessa Kerry and Nahed met in 2005 when both were in early stages of their residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. They married in 2009. Kerry runs a global health nonprofit.
“Some media outlets that lack credit [sic] fabricate such news in pursuit of special objectives, including finding more viewer [sic],” Fars said.
The Iranian report traced the best-man story back to one Michele Hickford, “a communications strategist and award-winning advertising copywriter. She has held senior marketing positions at Turner Broadcasting and USA Networks and served in Congressman West’s congressional office and as Press Secretary for his 2012 campaign.”
Former Congressman Allen West cited the report on his website on July 28.
Fars explained to its readers that the report was an attempt to tarnish Secretary of State John Kerry’s reputation “as the Republicans and the Israeli lobbies have started massive propaganda to torpedo a recent nuclear deal struck between the six world powers and Iran.”
