Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrives to attend a news conference in Tehran, Iran August 5, 2019. Photo: Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS.

JNS.org – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rebuked a group of Democratic senators on Tuesday who reportedly met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif last week on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) was one senator who met with Zarif, reported The Federalist.

Speaking to reporters during his tour through Africa, Pompeo said that Zarif was sanctioned by the United States—a move that occurred in July.

“He’s the foreign minister for a country that shot down an airliner and has yet to turn over the black boxes,” said Pompeo, referencing Tehran’s shooting down of a commercial airliner on Jan. 8, resulting in the deaths of 176 passengers. “This is the foreign minister of a country that killed an American on December 27. This is the foreign minister of a country that is the world’s largest state sponsor of terror and the world’s largest sponsor of antisemitism.”

If the Democratic senators had the meeting, said Pompeo, “I don’t know what they said. I hope they were reinforcing America’s foreign policy, not their own.”

US State Department officials said they had no role in, nor approved of, the meeting, reported The Washington Free Beacon.