In a Vatican ceremony this week 13 ambassadors to the Holy See received a prestigious honorific distinction. News that the recipients included Iran’s Mohammad Hossein Mokhtari caused eyebrows to be raised.
After the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) brutally clamped down on protests this year, killing 30,0000 people according to some estimates, an Iranian official might seem like an unlikely recipient of the Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order of Pius IX, which Iranian media claimed was awarded for efforts to “promote peace”.
