TEHRAN, 5 September 2003 — Iran must be careful in pressing its dispute with Britain over the arrest of a former Iranian diplomat against a backdrop of international calls led by Washington and London that it open up its nuclear facilities to snap inspections.
Tension between Tehran and London has been on the rise since Aug. 21, when British police arrested Iran’s former ambassador to Argentina on an extradition warrant issued by an Argentine judge who accused the ex-diplomat of involvement in planning and executing a 1994 bomb attack on a Jewish center in Buenos Aires which killed 85 people.
The Iranians have made it clear to the British that they would not accept that Hadi Soleimanpur be extradited to Argentina, with whom they have already cut diplomatic and cultural ties, and that they might go as far as to expel the British ambassador in Tehran if Soleimanpour is not let go.
The strain in relations escalated Wednesday with Tehran recalling its ambassador to London “for consultations” and the British Embassy in Tehran coming under gunfire attack by a man on a motorbike, according to eye witnesses.
The embassy on Ferdossi Street has been the target of similar attacks in the past. The question on many people’s minds regarding the lastest attack is whether it was an isolated incident or part of a concerted effort by radical and conservative elements in Iran that want to inflame the situation.
Both sides have attempted to minimize the potential fallout from the attack with the Iranian foreign minister calling it an “irresponsible” act and the Foreign Office refraining from lodging an official complaint.
But a segment of the Iranian population has become a lot more hostile towards Britain with this being fueled by official talk of a “Zionist conspiracy” agaisnt Iran and calls by conservatives for the British Ambassador to Iran Richard Dalton to be expelled. The Islamist daily Jumhuri-Eslami called yesterday for the shut down of the British Embassy in Tehran.
“This would be slap in the face of the British. Tony Blair and the liars that serve him, would understand, before leaving 10 Downing Street in humiliation, that they are unworthy of Iran’s goodwill,” said the paper. The paper echoes the position of many hard-liners who believe that in the Soleimanpour affair and in other instances Iran must demonstrate to the West that “they are mistaken to confuse Iran’s goodwill as a sign of weakness”.
The same argument is used by Iranians who are against the country acquiescing to pressure by the United States, Britain and the European Union that it agree to snap UN inspections of its nuclear power sites.
Britain has been in the forefront of an international chorus urging Iran to sign an additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would allow unannounced checks of its nuclear facilities to insure that they were not being used for military purposes.
Iran said Wednesday that it had not made up its mind whether to sign the additional protocol.
