Illness forces FM Zarif to cancel appointments

'Due to continuation and severity of Mr Zarif's illness which began from yesterday and forced him to be hospitalized for several hours, and the need for his total rest prescribed by doctors, all the foreign minister's planned schedules both on Saturday and Sunday have been cancelled,' Bahram Qasemi said.

Qasemi said that Zarif's planned meeting on Sunday with Oman's visiting Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs Yusef Ben Alavi was also canceled.

The meeting between Zarif and Ben Alavi was supposed to take place on Saturday but it was postponed to Sunday, he added.

The spokesman said that Zarif's Omani counterpart who, heading a politico-economic delegation is in Tehran, was officially received by Iranian officials, including the Majlis (parliament) speaker, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and the governor of Iran's Central Bank and that the parties have held constructive talks.

'Ben Alavi is scheduled to meet President Hassan Rouhani around noon and he will take part in a luncheon given in his honor,' Qademi said.

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