Baroness Ashton’s plunging neckline ‘covered up’ by Iranian media

Daily Telegraph: Iranian censors covered Baroness Ashton, the EU foreign minister’s plunging neckline, in press coverage of her failed “quiet diplomacy” in top-level talks over Iran’s nuclear programme at the weekend.

The Daily Telegraph

Iranian censors covered Baroness Ashton, the EU foreign minister’s plunging neckline, in press coverage of her failed “quiet diplomacy” in top-level talks over Iran’s nuclear programme at the weekend.

By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels

The British peer followed advice not to touch her Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, during a photocell.

But while she kept her arms firmly folded behind her back to avoid accidentally causing diplomatic offence to Muslims, she did not realise that her outfit would be thought too revealing for Iranian tastes.

Newspapers carried reports of the talks, held in Istanbul, which ended in impasse. However the censors filled in her low-cut top to give it a more modest, Islamic neckline.

A spokeswoman for Lady Ashton said: “She was properly dressed. It was not low-cut. Many women in Iran are in a complete veil. These were international negotiations in a third country.”