UK to Re-open Iran Embassy Says Hague

BBC: Foreign Secretary William Hague has said plans to re-open the British Embassy in Tehran are an "important step forward" in relations with Iran.

Mr Hague said the "circumstances were right" following an improvement in bilateral relations in recent months.

Full diplomatic relations with Iran were suspended after attacks on the British embassy in Iran in 2011.

The election of a new Iranian president and a deal on Iran's nuclear programme has led to renewed contacts this year.

The move comes as Iraqi forces are engaged in heavy clashes with Sunni Islamist militants across the country and amid reports that Iran is providing military assistance to its historic rival. » | Tuesday, June 17, 2014

30th Anniversary of Falklands War: British Embassy attacked in Buenos Aires
Petrol bombs and stones are thrown at police guarding the British Embassy on 30th anniversary of Falklands war.

YAHOO NEWS!: Rioters Attack British Embassy In Buenos Aires: Demonstrators have attacked the British embassy compound in Buenos Aires on the 30th anniversary of the start of the 1982 Falklands War. » | Declan McGarvey, in Buenos Aires | Sky News | Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Iran's Mullahs Come Out Fighting

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The storming of the British embassy in Tehran and William Hague’s closure of the Iranian mission in London brings to an end the fruitless diplomatic reconciliation instigated by the last Labour government.

For the beleaguered group of diplomats holed up in the British Embassy compound in Tehran and surrounded by a baying mob of Iranian protesters, it was, as one of their colleagues phlegmatically remarked yesterday, “a very hairy few hours”.

The embassy staff had been forewarned that trouble was brewing. All Tuesday morning, pro-government Farsi websites had posted comments calling for protesters to gather in Bobby Sands Street. This is the name that the road leading to the British Embassy was given by the ayatollahs when they last squared up to Britain, over the Salman Rushdie affair in 1989.

The original aim of the protest was to commemorate the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, one of three killed in the past two years on the streets of Tehran. But with relations between Britain and Iran entering one of their periodic crises, the bloggers argued that there was no better way to mark the scientist’s death than to focus their ire on the embassy compound in central Tehran.

Britain has a long and undistinguished history of intrigue in Iranian affairs, dating from the 19th century when British gunboats regularly shelled Persian ports to persuade the Shah to toe the line. More recently, in 1953, British intelligence masterminded the plot to overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh – arguably Iran’s last democratically elected prime minister – after he sought to nationalise the British-owned Anglo-Iranian oil company.

Given this history of skulduggery, it is hardly surprising that most Iranians believe Britain is involved in the carefully coordinated campaign of assassinations, bombings and acts of computer sabotage that are clearly designed to disrupt Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. In the most recent incident, a mysterious explosion appears to have caused significant damage to the uranium enrichment complex at Isfahan, a vital feature of Iran’s nuclear programme. Read on and comment » | Con Coughlin | Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Hague Says Iran Will Face 'Serious Consequences' Over Embassy Attack
THE GUARDIAN: Foreign secretary says Tehran breached Vienna convention in failing to protect diplomatic mission

William Hague has warned Iran it faces "serious consequences" over the attack on the British embassy in Tehran.

Hundreds of protesters surged onto two compounds this afternoon, putting the safety of staff at risk and causing "extensive damage" to property, the foreign secretary said.

"Clearly there will be other, further, and serious consequences. I will make a statement updating parliament on this tomorrow [Wednesday]."

Iranian police protected Britain's ambassador and some staff earlier from a large crowd outside, Hague said.

He added: "There has been a confusing situation at times as to the whereabouts of certain staff. I wouldn't use the term hostage. Clearly there have been situations where the Iranian police have intervened to try to ensure the safety of our staff.

"We are grateful for that but this situation should never have been allowed to arise in the first place." » | Saeed Kamali Dehghan and agencies | Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Related »

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: British relations with Iran sink to lowest in decades as Tehran embassies are stormed: Britain’s relations with Iran were plunged into their worst crisis in decades after protesters [stormed] two British embassy compounds in Tehran, ransacked offices and forced diplomatic staff to seek refuge in secure rooms. ¶ The most extraordinary scenes came at Britain’s embassy near Tehran’s central bazaar, where riot police simply stood by as demonstrators broke into the main building and tore down pictures of The Queen, looted sensitive documents, smashed windows and even threw petrol bombs. ¶ Chanting “death to England”, the protesters - many of them organised by a student branch of the pro-regime Basiji militia - burned the British flag and set a car on fire in protest at sanctions imposed last week on the Iranian banking system. ¶ Diplomats were forced to seek refuge in a secure room behind reinforced doors and windows, from where they managed to use secure communications to alert London. According to one report, six embassy staff had to be rescued by police after being held hostage by the protesters for several hours. » | Damien McElroy, Amad Vahdat | Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Iranian Students Storm British Embassy in Tehran

Read USA Today article here | Douglas Stanglin, USA Today | Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Related »

Iranian TV Shows Protesters Storming British Embassy in Tehran
Following Tehran's decision to downgrade diplomatic ties with the UK after the imposition of fresh sanctions, Iranian protesters have broken into the grounds of the British Embassy in the capital.

Read short article here | Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Follow live coverage of the situation here
Related »

Western Embassies Close in Yemen after 'Direct al-Qaeda Threat'
TIMES ONLINE: Three Western embassies closed in Yemen today over security concerns about possible militant attacks after the failed bombing of a US-bound plane on Christmas Day.

The US Embassy said it had received a threat by al-Qaeda, which US intelligence agencies believe has a growing presence in the impoverished Arab country.

A British Foreign Office spokeswoman cited security reasons for its the closure of its embassy, but declined to say if any specific threat had been made.

Spain has also decided to close its embassy in Sanaa on Monday and Tuesday, the newspaper El Mundo said, quoting embassy sources.

In Washington, a senior aide to President Obama said that the United States had information that al-Qaeda was planning an attack against a target in Sanaa.

John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief, said there were “indications al-Qaeda is planning to carry out an attack against a target inside of Sanaa, possibly our embassy".

A statement on the embassy’s website announcing the closure did not say how long it would remain closed.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said a decision would be taken later as to whether the British Embassy would reopen tomorrow.

The moves came after Mr Obama blamed a Yemen-based al-Qaeda affiliate for masterminding an attempt by a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to detonate a bomb on a Detroit-bound passenger plane. >>> | Sunday, January 03, 2010

Iranian Court Says ‘Confessions’ Prove Western Plot
Hossein Rassam defending himself during a hearing at a revolutionary court in Tehran. Photo: TimesOnline
TIMES ONLINE: Iran’s conservative newspapers had a field day. “London — The control room for the street riots in Tehran”, proclaimed yesterday’s Kayhan newspaper, the mouthpiece of the regime. “The British Embassy: headquarters for the coup command”, read the front-page headline of the government newspaper Iran. Referring to Hossein Rassam, an Iranian whom the British Embassy employed as its chief political analyst, the Javan newspaper proclaimed: “The accused in the ‘Velvet Revolution’ confesses”.

Mr Rassam, 44, was one of six defendants who stood before a revolutionary court in Tehran at the weekend to “confess” their roles in what a long prosecution indictment portrayed as a vast international conspiracy to topple the regime — a conspiracy devised by the British, US and Israeli intelligence services with help from France, Germany, the BBC, the British Council, Voice of America, Twitter, Facebook and Google’s Persian-language translation service.

Western politicians, human rights groups and analysts denounced the “show trials” and their apparently coerced confessions. They claimed the regime was attempting to intimidate an opposition that it had failed to suppress by force, and to rally its own fractured base by blaming foreign enemies for the turmoil that has engulfed Iran since the disputed presidential election of June 12.

Mr Rassam was arrested at the end of June and released on bail on July 19. The embassy had no idea that he was going to appear at Saturday’s trial, where he “confessed” to exactly the sort of activities that his job required — making contacts with political groups, gathering information and reporting back to the embassy. He was accused of espionage and asked for pardon and a chance to make amends.

Another of the six defendants was Clotilde Reiss, 24, a French language teacher arrested as she was leaving Iran on July 1. Looking haggard after her incarceration, she “confessed” to sending a letter to the French Embassy in Tehran from the city of Isfahan and apologised to the Iranian nation. A third defendant was Nazak Afshar, a French-Iranian working in the embassy’s cultural department, who “confessed” to attending gatherings. >>> Martin Fletcher | Monday, August 10, 2009

Sarkozy mobilisé pour Reiss
leJDD.fr: L’Elysée a fait savoir que Nicolas Sarkozy restait mobilisé pour obtenir la libération de Clotilde Reiss, détenues en Iran depuis le 1er juillet. Le président "multiplie les interventions". Mais les autorités iraniennes fustigent les propos de la Française.

Après le Quai d’Orsay ce week-end, c’est à l’Elysée de réagir au procès de Clotilde Reiss, qui s’est déroulé samedi en Iran à la surprise de tous. Le palais présidentiel a assuré lundi que Nicolas Sarkozy, actuellement en congé au Cap Nègre, restait actif pour libérer l’universitaire française, "l'objectif prioritaire" du chef de l’Etat dans cette affaire. "Il multiplie les interventions auprès de tous ceux qui peuvent exercer une influence en vue d'un règlement rapide et de sa libération", a assuré l’Elysée.

Le chef de l’Etat avait déjà réclamé la libération de la jeune femme de 24 ans début juillet, quelques jours après son arrestation à Téhéran. L’Elysée avait qualifié les charges qui pesaient contre elles d’"hautement fantaisistes". Clotilde Reiss est accusée d’avoir participé aux manifestations suivant la réélection de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad et d’avoir encouragé les troubles. Ce week-end, le ministère des Affaires étrangères avait réitéré les demandes de libération. Un tribunal a en effet jugé samedi Clotilde Reiss et deux employés des ambassades de France et de Grande-Bretagne à Téhéran. >>> M.V. (avec Reuters), leJDD.fr | Lundi 10 Août 2009

Iran's British Stooges Are Staring Right at You
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Zahra, an Iranian woman studying at an English university, is in a state of terror. Her husband, an activist in the cause of the defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, was arrested a fortnight ago, and has not been seen since. Zahra, whose eyes are lined in green, the colour of the country’s reformist opposition, told the BBC: “Why should he be in jail? What was wrong with what we did in Tehran? It was the basic right of all Iranians to take part in the election.” She went on: “They don’t let my husband call me . . . this is torture.”

It is torture for Zahra because she has a good idea of what is happening to her husband. The Iranian state media have been broadcasting a series of “confessions” by demonstrators against the alleged rigging of the presidential vote in favour of the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They all tend to say the same thing: “I admit that I demonstrated under the influence of the BBC, the Voice of America and other foreign media.”

Their identities are not discernible, because their faces have been obscured. The reason for this was made horribly clear by remarks in The Guardian from a shopkeeper friend of an 18-year-old who had been “questioned” by the Iranian security services: “You could tell straight away he had just been released. His face was bruised all over. His teeth were broken and he could hardly open his eyes . . . [Later] the doctor told me that he had suffered rupture of the rectum.”

The shopkeeper quoted his 18-year-old friend to the effect that he had not “confessed” despite several days of beating while being hung from a ceiling with his hands and feet tied together. At that point two men tore his clothes off while a third “did it” – that is, inflicted the assault that ruptured his rectum. He was raped several times in this way, in front of four other detainees, but continued to refuse to sign a confession along the lines suggested by his interrogators.

So when we hear Ayatollah Jannati, chief of the Guardian Council, say of arrested Iranian employees of the British embassy in Tehran, “Naturally they will be put on trial, they have made confessions,” we should be only too aware of what will have been happening to some of Her Majesty’s servants. >>> Dominic Lawson | Sunday, July 05, 2009

EU Resolve Hardens as British Workers Face Iran Show Trial
TIMES ONLINE: Iranian employees of the British Embassy in Tehran face the prospect of a show trial after the regime said that they had admitted conspiring against the Islamic Republic.

The announcement, made by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, 83, the head of Iran’s powerful Guardian Council, at Friday prayers, was a sharp escalation of the confrontation with Britain.

The British Government said that the charges against the arrested local staff were “wholly without foundation” and William Hague, the shadow Foreign Secretary, called a show trial of British embassy staff in Tehran "utterly unacceptable".

The European Union’s 27 member states summoned the Iranian ambassadors in all EU capitals to make formal protests and stopped issuing visas to Iranian officials. A senior European diplomat insisted that the dramatic step of withdrawing EU ambassadors en masse from Tehran was still “very much on the table”.

Two of the nine Iranians arrested last weekend were still being held last night. Ayatollah Jannati did not say how many would be tried or on what charges, but the penalty for extreme cases of treason is execution. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that it was seeking urgent clarification on his announcement.

Officials feared that the employees’ “confessions” might have been extracted under duress or torture. British diplomats have not been given access to the two employees still held. >>> Martin Fletcher | Saturday, July 04, 2009