Mr Dalli was speaking in parliament in reference to allegations made by Dr Sant that he had used his position as a minister to divert work from an Iranian shipping company to another with Mr Dalli has family ties.

Mr Dalli said that Dr Sant was being led by a company, SMS, that had an axe to grind and thought that it had some sort of monopoly in its sector.

He said that he had welcomed the Iranian delegation as part of his duties as the then Finance and Commerce Minister. The Iranian government had previously sent a communication to the Foreign Affairs Ministry informing them of arrival of the delegation which included the Iranian Commerce Vice Minister.

The minister said he was only doing his job by welcoming his counterpart at the airport as was standard procedure with dignitaries from all other countries.

Apart from the minister himself, the delegation had requested to meet a number of other organisations and bodies that included Communications Minister Censu Galea, officials from the freeport and even MLP representative Joe Mifsud.