Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib is currently under intense pressure to resign following her decision to grant visas to delegations from Iran and Russia to attend a mayors' convention
in Brussels last week.
Lahbib is being scrutinized for approving visa requests from citizens of two countries that are under international sanctions, and this decision comes merely three weeks after the release of Belgian NGO worker Olivier Vandecasteele from an Iranian prison.
Vandecasteele, aged 42, was arrested during a visit to Iran in February 2022 and was sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges including spying.
He was released last month as part of a prisoner swap, wherein an Iranian diplomat imprisoned in Belgium in connection with a failed bomb plot was exchanged. Following this swap, three more Europeans were also freed from Iranian jails.
The "Brussels Urban Summit," held last week, brought together the mayors of over 300 international cities, including Brussels, Bogota, Kyiv, and Tehran, along with members of the European Commission and the European Parliament, to discuss the challenges faced by cities.
The visit of Tehran's mayor, Alireza Zakani, who is known for his ultra-radical stance within the Iranian regime, has sparked controversy. Although he is not on the sanctions list, questions were raised about his presence in Brussels.
Pascal Smet, the State Secretary for External Relations and Foreign Trade of the Brussels government, resigned on Sunday due to his involvement in the all-expenses-paid trip.
"We discovered an email showing that my office had agreed to cover the living expenses of the heads of delegation from Tehran and Kazan. I am now asking the organizers, Metropolis, to bear these costs," Smet stated during a press conference.
Smet claimed he was unaware of the email and attributed the mistake to a member of his cabinet.
Darya Safai, a Belgian-Iranian lawmaker from the opposition party N-VA, demanded Lahbib's resignation, stating that the party is seeking a minister who takes responsibility.
"The crucial question is why she agreed to issue these visas. Why, only three weeks after the release of Olivier Vandecasteele, did she allow terrorists to come to Brussels? And why does Belgium always find itself tarnished by foreign relations that it cannot control?" Safai expressed during an interview.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not yet responded to requests for comments. Belgian lawmakers will convene on 21 June to discuss the matter. The minister has already been involved in a scandal after she visited Russian-occupied Crimea in July 2021.
She claimed that the purpose of her visit was to create a documentary film. As a journalist, she participated in the "Global Values" festival organized by the Lunacharsky Theater in Sevastopol. Her visa was issued by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, despite the fact that Crimea is Ukrainian territory seized by Russian forces during the military operation in 2014.
She did not hide this fact and openly talked about her trip on social media and television broadcasts, but it did not receive much attention until her appointment as the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The organizer of the festival is the Sevastopol Academic Russian Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky, which is headed by a certain Grigory Lifanov. The reconstruction of the theater building was personally supervised by President Putin, and Lifanov is closely connected to the Kremlin and is a supporter of Russian military propaganda.
Photo by IAEA Imagebank, Wikimedia commons.