TEHRAN, 6 September 2003 — Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi has said the detention of former Iranian diplomat Hadi Soleimanpur by Britain has a “destructive effect” on bilateral relations, Iran’s student news agency ISNA reported yesterday.
“The continuing detention ... has a destructive effect on relations between Iran and Britain, and Iranian public opinion expects the freeing of Soleimanpour and the two Iranian journalists in Iraq,” ISNA said.
Kharrazi told British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a telephone conversation. Tehran’s ties with London have soured since the arrest in England last month of Soleimanpour, a former Iranian ambassador to Argentina accused by Buenos Aires of a role in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center there that killed 85 people.
The journalists to which Kharrazi referred were arrested by US forces on July 1 as they were filming a documentary in southern Iraq. British Embassy officials in Tehran had promised the families of the two journalists that they would “continue to actively follow up this case with the coalition provisional authority in Baghdad.”
Iran is “very sensitive when it comes to the destiny of its citizens and is very serious in protecting them,” Kharrazi added.
On Thurday, Britain’s Foreign Office authorised the voluntary departure of non-essential members of staff and dependents at the embassy in Tehran.
The mission had been shut indefinitely on Wednesday after shots were fired at it, just hours after Iran’s ambassador to Britain was recalled for consultations.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Thursday that London would continue its dialogue with the Iranian leadership, despite the souring of relations.
Blair also urged Iran to meet its international obligations on its nuclear activities, amid suggestions the government has a secret atomic weapons program, and halt support for “terrorist” groups.
