(Politico) Pascal Smet, foreign affairs minister of the region of Brussels, resigned on Sunday after coming under fire last week for inviting the ultra-conservative mayor of Tehran to the Brussels Urban Summit.
“I have decided to resign,” Smet, who is also urban planning chief for the Belgian capital, told a press conference on Sunday.
Smet, a Flemish socialist, created a controversy when he invited the Tehran mayor, Alireza Zakani, along with 14 Iranian officials and two Russian officials, to the Urban Summit, which ran June 12-15. The accommodation costs for these officials were paid by the Brussels region.
