Iran’s embassies in Armenia, Bulgaria, Zimbabwe, Finland and China removed politically charged posts about Uzbekistan’s historical and cultural heritage from their pages on X on Oct. 26, Foreign Ministry spokesman Omonulla Fayziev said.

What happened

On Oct. 19, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Samarkand and delivered remarks from Registan Square, calling the city one of the few places in the world of real significance.

“Few places on earth have played as important a role in world trade and commerce throughout history as Samarkand. It is an honor to be here today, not just to remember the opportunities for the future,” Rubio said.

His remarks were posted on X. Iran’s embassy in Armenia tagged Rubio’s post and wrote that Registan was part of Persian civilization.

Iran’s embassy in Zimbabwe described the arches of Registan Square as an architectural hallmark of Iranian-Islamic civilization, while its embassy in Bulgaria wrote that Rubio had been photographed in Samarkand against a backdrop of Persian heritage. The embassies in Zimbabwe, Finland and China also published statements along similar lines.

The Foreign Ministry then took diplomatic steps. On Oct. 23, Iran’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, Mohammad Ali Iskandari, was summoned to the ministry and handed a note of protest expressing Uzbekistan’s firm objection.

“The protest was prompted by messages posted on X by a number of Iranian diplomatic missions abroad that interpreted the historical and cultural heritage of Samarkand in a one-sided way and for political purposes,” the ministry said in a statement.

At the meeting, the ministry stressed that the heritage of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and Uzbekistan’s other historic cities is an integral part of a rich, multifaceted historical and cultural development spanning many centuries. Samarkand’s historical and cultural character reflects the Uzbek people’s centuries-old history, traditions of statehood and cultural development, it said.

It also stressed that material published on diplomatic missions’ official channels should reflect the principles of mutual respect and trust and should not politicize historical and cultural issues.

Iran was asked to remove the posts from the missions’ social media pages and to take the necessary steps to prevent a recurrence.

“Uzbekistan values its relations with Iran, which are based on mutual respect and trust. At the same time, it maintains a principled position against one-sided interpretations of our country’s historical and cultural heritage,” the statement said.