What's new

Britain, Iran severe diplomatic ties

The UK Foreign Office has cited “International law” in its reaction to the British embassy in Tehran's incident, while it has failed to protect the Iranian embassy in London several times before.


“Under the international law, including the Vienna Convention, the Iranian government have a clear duty to protect diplomats and embassies in their country and expect them to act urgently to bring the situation under control and ensure the safety of our staff and security of our property”, said a Foreign Office spokesperson.

The statement was made after a group of Iranian students outraged by the UK government's enmities towards the Islamic Republic of Iran stormed the British embassy in Tehran in a show of anger at British policies.

Iranian foreign ministry rejected the move by a number of protestors as “unacceptable” and a source of “regret” and reiterated the Iranian government's commitment to protect the diplomatic missions under the Vienna convention.

That came despite repeated failures of the British government in the past to stay committed to the same convention when Iranian missions in Britain were attacked.


In 1980, a group of six gunmen affiliated to an anti-Iranian terrorist group stormed the Iranian embassy building in South Kensington, London, taking 26 people hostage - mostly embassy staff - from 30 April to 5 May.

The embassy siege resulted in the death of two of hostages including one diplomat and ended with the intervention of Special Air Force (SAS) unit of the British Army.

The Iranian embassy had earlier written to the British Foreign Office to demand that they take the necessary measures to provide security to the mission.

The hostage taking took place exactly two days after the Foreign Office ensured the Iranian diplomats that the embassy will be protected.

All the hostage-takers, but one, were killed during the days-long crisis.

The remaining terrorist was prosecuted and jailed for life, but was later released in violation of the Vienna Convention and despite the fact that he was a member of the MKO group, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union.

The embassy building, having suffered major damage from a fire that broke out during the assault, remained closed for 13 years and was re-opened as the Iranian embassy in 1993.

A former MI6 officer revealed in 1997 that London Metropolitan Police had engineered the attacked.

The officer who was a top consultant to the Met chief at the time of the incident said the embassy's siege and occupation and killing of Iranian diplomats were planned by the MI6 chief who had employed a number of Iraqi terrorists affiliated with the spy agency to carry out his plot.

Back in 2008 a fire bomb was hurled at the embassy in Prince's Gate, Knightsbridge, yet the Scotland Yard only launched an investigation with the probe leading nowhere.

Later in the follow-up to the 2009 presidential election in Iran, the Iranian embassy was targeted several times.

The attackers were put under arrest by the British police but the same individuals kept coming in and launching further assaults in the following days while the embassy was the target of a raft of attacks in the following years.

In May 2010, a group of anarchists attacked the Iranian embassy in London again, smashed the building's windows and inflicted damage to property.

Only months later in December, a parcel sent to the Consulate of the Iranian embassy in London exploded outside the building.

Foreign ministry sources said at the time that embassy officials had raised concerns with the British government over suspicious parcels sent to the mission but they were ignored.

The sources also said that the “indifference” of British officials to the embassy warnings were influential in the persistence of the attackers.

PressTV - UK cries foul over Iran mission incident
 
The UK Foreign Office has cited “International law” in its reaction to the British embassy in Tehran's incident, while it has failed to protect the Iranian embassy in London several times before.

Hypocrisy at its best?? One regret..the Iranian mob did not massacre the UK embassy staff or took them as refugees....against sanctions!
 
Hypocrisy at its best?? One regret..the Iranian mob did not massacre the UK embassy staff or took them as refugees....against sanctions!
You don't help yourselves do you? No wonder the west wants to attack you with views like that.
 
I am surprised that the UK government haven't frozen all Iranian assets and bank accounts in the UK because that's what they normally are good at doing - take the money as a confiscation order and spend it on buying bombs to bomb the nation whose money it was as they did with Libya.

Kaif Bhai, they have already done that. Some 2.2 billion dollars of Iranian money is frozen in UK almost since revolution most of it being the money for military hardwares such as Chieftain tanks which were not delivered to Iran. This money is now part of UK's foreign currency reserves and held at UK's treasury and Iran has no access to it. The frozen reserves have lost most of their value since over almost 33 years now no compound interest has been calculated for it and the value of money continuously has dropped in all those years. See here for further details.
 
Or perhaps its because the Iranian government once again showed its flagrant disregard of international law and broke all diplomatic norms by once again attacking embassies (guests of the state) on its soil, instead of simply telling them to leave like Britain did.:rolleyes:

What a crock.


Others beside Britain have already or are considering pulling their ambassadors. Iran shouldn't be surprised.


This will increase the chances of war though, as there are less mechanisms to mediate conflict available now.

I've often seen the word thugocracy used to describe Iran on American hard right wing sites.

That is apt in this case. Iran's actions were the actions of a Thugocracy
idiot, you keep talking about international law
I have told you 5 times. It's against international law to freeze the assets of another country without UN approval. They are stealing our people's money. That's breaking international law so stfu
 
You have issues going on with them.You attacked their embassy..How come Pakistan came into this ? You are just spurting BS.Grow up Kid.
you didn't need to insullt me. this was nothing of BS.
He said that to somebozo who is Pakistani, he didn't say that to an Iranian. So that's why i ask him why he said to him
understand now?
 
Or perhaps its because the Iranian government once again showed its flagrant disregard of international law and broke all diplomatic norms by once again attacking embassies (guests of the state) on its soil, instead of simply telling them to leave like Britain did.:rolleyes:

What a crock.


Others beside Britain have already or are considering pulling their ambassadors. Iran shouldn't be surprised.


This will increase the chances of war though, as there are less mechanisms to mediate conflict available now.

I've often seen the word thugocracy used to describe Iran on American hard right wing sites.

That is apt in this case. Iran's actions were the actions of a Thugocracy

Look who's talking.
 
Would you inform us about those other countries that are now considering pulling their ambassadors?

Gladly

Britain pulls diplomatic staff from Iran, orders Iranian Embassy in London closed - The Washington Post
relevant text said:
European Union member countries were scheduled to meet in Brussels on Thursday to decide whether their embassies would remain open in light of the attack, which was a stark escalation of long-simmering anti-Western sentiment. Norway closed its embassy for the day on Wednesday, and Germany’s Foreign Office announced that it was recalling its ambassador from Iran for consultations.

second source Britain orders Iran's diplomats to leave UK *| ajc.com

relevant text said:
Germany, France and the Netherlands all recalled their ambassadors from Iran late Wednesday for consultations on further action in response. Norway closed its embassy in Tehran as a precaution.
presumably a later source with the addition of France.
 
idiot, you keep talking about international law
I have told you 5 times. It's against international law to freeze the assets of another country without UN approval. They are stealing our people's money. That's breaking international law so stfu

point to where freezing Iran's assets are illegal. The UN has approved of several sanctions against Iran, 2 of which explicitly involve freezing Iranian assets.

Meanwhile attacking an embassy is rather clearly an embarassing violation of international norms and decency. To conduct a premeditative and conscious attack, backed by state forces, on an embassy (and embassy staff) that has not been party to any physical conflict not once, but twice is appalling.


Russia knows this, China knows this.

Even some of Iran's own government know this, but they are not the ones in charge.
 
Look who's talking.

That would be the rest of the world.

Unless you believe this blatant and uneccessary attack was just? Considering that they could have simply told the British embassy to leave, they did this simply because they wanted to without regard to international law when clearly more legal options to end the existence of the British embassy in Iran existed. That is the action of a thug.
 
idiot, you keep talking about international law
I have told you 5 times. It's against international law to freeze the assets of another country without UN approval. They are stealing our people's money. That's breaking international law so stfu

That is right. Some 2.2 billion dollars of Iranian money remains frozen in UK since revolution. Some of that money had been given by Iran to UK banks in 1970 and it is almost 40 years since Iranians have not seen it again. Most of this money was for military hardwares which Iran never got from UK and some of it was supplied by UK to Saddam. This money has lost most of its worth over the decades and if calculated on compound interest rates would be 100s of billions of dollars today. It has now become part of UK's foreign currency reserves in UK treasury. See here for more details.
 

Pakistan Affairs Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom