Tehran summons UK envoy over ‘biased positions, baseless claims’
Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned UK’s Ambassador to Tehran Hugo Shorter to protest repeated “baseless claims” by British officials against the Islamic Republic.
The Foreign Ministry said the ambassador was summoned after British officials accused Tehran of attempting to interfere in the internal affairs of the United Kingdom.
Hugo Shorter was summoned by Director General for Western Europe Affairs at Iran’s Foreign Ministry Alireza Yousefi.
“The biased positions and baseless claims of British officials against Iran are contrary to the principles of the international law and diplomatic norms and will intensify the Iranian nation’s distrust of British policies towards Iran and the West Asian region,” Yousefi told the British envoy.
Britain said on Tuesday that it would require the Iranian government to register everything it does to exert political influence in the UK, subjecting Tehran to an elevated tier of scrutiny in light of what it said was increasingly aggressive activity, Press TV reported.
Addressing parliament on Wednesday, UK security minister Dan Jarvis announced that he would put Iran’s state, its security services and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps into the enhanced tier of an upcoming registration scheme designed to protect against covert foreign influence.
Earlier on Thursday, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei also refuted British officials’ accusations, saying they blame the Islamic Republic for something they “excel in and master”.
“It is absurd to blame Iran for something you excel in and master: illegal interference in other nations’ internal affairs!” Baqaei responded in a post on X Thursday.
Baqaei touched on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s remarks in November that he did not believe Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and Britain’s role in the 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.
“UK government seems to be doubling down on its irrational hostile mentality regarding Iranians only to deflect from their own culpability, both as ‘genocide denier’ and as supporter of anti-Iran terrorism (tracing back to 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically-elected govnt for which UK’s guilt never disappears).
“However, this is no longer the 19th century; any government that makes unfounded accusations and takes hostile actions against the Iranian nation shall be held accountable,” he said.
Iranians generally blame Britain for the “Great Famine and Genocide” of 1917–1919 in Iran where approximately 2 million people and by some accounts 8-10 million out of a population of 18–20 million died of starvation and disease.
The famine took place after Iran, despite declaring neutrality during World War I, was occupied by British and Russian forces.