Britain closes Iran embassy over attacks

BRITAIN has shut down the Iranian embassy in London and expelled all its staff, saying the storming of the British diplomatic mission in Tehran could not have taken place without some degree of consent from Iranian authorities.

Foreign Secretary William Hague also said the British embassy in Tehran had been closed and all staff evacuated following the attack on Tuesday by a crowd who broke through gates, ransacked offices and burned British flags in a protest over sanctions imposed by Britain on the Tehran government.

It was the most violent incident so far as relations between the two countries worsen due to a wider dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Hague said Iranian ambassadors across the European Union had been summoned to receive strong protests over the incident. But Britain stopped short of severing ties with Iran completely.

“The Iranian charge (d’affaires) in London is being informed now that we require the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy in London and that all Iranian diplomatic staff must leave the United Kingdom within the next 48 hours,” Hague told parliament.

“We have now closed the British embassy in Tehran. We have decided to evacuate all our staff and as of the last few minutes, the last of our UK-based staff have now left Iran.”

It was the worst crisis between Britain and Iran since full diplomatic relations were restored in 1999, 10 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa to kill Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses.

Hague said it was “fanciful” to think the Iranian authorities could not have protected the British embassy, or that the assault could have taken place without “some degree of regime consent”.

“This does not amount to the severing of diplomatic relations in their entirety. It is action that reduces our relations with Iran to the lowest level consistent with the maintenance of diplomatic relations,” he added.

Prime Minister David Cameron chaired meetings of the government’s crisis committee on Tuesday night and again yesterday to decide London’s response.

But mindful of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, when radical students held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, Britain waited until all its two dozen diplomatic staff and dependents had left the country to announce its move.

While the attack raises tensions between Iran and the West, it also exposes widening divisions within Iran’s ruling elite over how to deal with the increased international pressure as sanctions take their toll on the already stagnant economy.

The protest appeared to be a move by the conservatives who dominate parliament to force President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to heed their demand to expel the British ambassador.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore urged the Iranian government to bring those responsible to justice and at the same time to reconsider the proposed expulsion of the British ambassador to Iran as a matter of urgency.

“If Iran fails to take these steps, there are likely to be serious consequences for Iran’s relations with the EU and the wider international community,” he warned.