Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has cancelled a planned appearance at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos after its organizers “abruptly changed its agenda”, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday.
“They changed the original program they had for him, the program that had been agreed upon, and came up with something else,” spokesman Abbas Mousavi told a televised news conference in Tehran, AFP reports.
“Either way, this trip unfortunately will not happen,” he outlined. It was not immediately clear what exact change prompted the cancellation.
Zarif’s no-show negates the possibility of a showdown at the venue with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Tehran and Washington have been sworn enemies since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but tensions have worsened since 2018 when Trump withdrew from the Obama-negotiated JCPOA 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers.
Tensions further escalated after a U.S. drone strike eliminated one of the Islamic Republic’s top terror commanders, Qasem Soleimani, on January 3.
This year’s Davos meeting begins Tuesday and will be held under the banner “Stakeholders for a Sustainable and Cohesive World.”
Davos Forum Elites to Demand Immediate Global Action on ‘Climate Change’ https://t.co/8NruRimVpY
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 26, 2019
As Breitbart News reported, organizers expect some 3,000 corporate and government representatives to fly in from around the world to broach climate issues at the luxury ski resort, with a squadron of some 1700 private jets providing transport for the bulk of the attendees.
WEF meetings in Davos have traditionally drawn globalist elites to Switzerland for a week of talking. They represent the worlds of business, government, international aid, academia, arts and culture, and the media, however such high level chat is not cheap.
The WEF website reveals annual membership (required if you want to buy a ticket to Davos) is upwards of U.S.$60,000, depending on the institution or company’s “level of engagement”.
At the top are the 100 “strategic partner” companies – including Accenture, Barclays, Deloitte, KPMG and Unilever – who pay around U.S.$600,000 for annual membership, which entitles them to buy an access-all-sessions pass for themselves and five colleagues, including special privileges. But they still have to purchase actual tickets to the event.
WEF guests have long drawn accusations that CEOs are failing to back up their talk on fighting “climate change,” stamping an outsized carbon footprint with their luxury aircraft as they fly in to consider ways for the rest of the world to heed their calls.
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