Iran has called in the Russian envoy to Tehran over the release by Moscow’s Embassy of a controversial picture, which was taken to bring to mind a World War II-era conference in Tehran that lives in infamy in the historical memory of the Iranian nation.

Russian Ambassador Levan Dzhagaryan was called in by the Iranian Foreign Ministry to receive representations over the release of the picture on Twitter, which shows him and his UK counterpart meeting on the veranda of the Russian Embassy in Tehran, the site of a 1943 strategy meeting of the then ex-Soviet, US and British leaders — namely Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill — two years after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.

During the meeting on Thursday, the Russian diplomat explained that publishing the photo had merely been meant to highlight the WWII-era alliance with Britain against the Nazi army, and had no anti-Iran intention at all.

He emphasized the deep and strategic ties between Iran and Russia and expressed regret that the picture had hurt the feelings of the friendly Iranian people.

Having heard the explanations, the director-general of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Eurasia section said the release of such a photo was still “unacceptable,” and that it was a must for foreign missions to pay close attention to the political, cultural and historical exigencies of the host state.

The Russian official was also told that the great nation of Iran had time and again proved over the past 42 year since its Islamic Revolution that it would seriously work to safeguard the independence that the country achieved on the back of historical resistance and sacrificial struggles, and that it would adjust its ties, as a powerful state, with other countries based on national dignity.

During the historical conference, the three WWII Allies agreed to open a new front against the then Nazi Germany about two years prior to the end of World War II, a decision that changed the fate of the war in favor of the trio.

However, the image of the so-called “Big Three” is infamous to the Iranian people since it is reminiscent of the violation of their country’s national sovereignty by the three countries, two of which had exploited the then Pahlavi regime’s inefficacy and submissiveness to deploy troops to Iranian soil despite the fact that Tehran had declared neutrality in the war.

The Pahlavi regime had neither been informed of the vital meeting on Iranian soil nor invited to it.

“Ambassador Levan Dzhagaryan’s meeting with the new head of the Flag of United Kingdom British diplomatic mission in Iran Simon Shercliff on the historical stair, where the 1943 Tehran conference was held,” read the caption of the image tweeted by the Russian Embassy in Tehran.

The image, however, drew anger and criticism among Iranians, with the country’s senior officials quickly reacting to the image that they viewed as an insult to the Islamic Republic.

‘Extremely inappropriate’

Foreign Minister Zarif took to Twitter to denounce the image as “extremely inappropriate” and said, “Need I remind all that Aug. 2021 is neither Aug. 1941 nor Dec. 1943.”