Iran Threatens Britain
August 25, 2003
The Guardian
Dan De Luce
Iran threatened "strong action" and demanded an apology from Britain yesterday over the arrest of a former Iranian ambassador to Argentina who faces possible extradition in connection with a bombing in Buenos Aires.
Hadi Soleimanpour, 47, was arrested in Durham on Thursday over the AMIA Jewish community centre blast that killed 85 people in July 1994.
Mohammad Khatami, the president of Iran, condemned the arrest as a political attack but did not specify what actions his country would take.
"I declare from here that the British government will have to cease carrying on with this incorrect deed in a short period of time and apologise," he said in remarks broadcast by state television.
"What has happened has been politically motivated. There are forces and lobbies behind the case trying to put the Islamic republic under pressure by levelling baseless accusations and unfounded allegations against Tehran."
The British charge d'affaires in Tehran, Matthew Gould, was summoned to the foreign ministry yesterday for the second time in two days in a case that threatens to disrupt improving ties between the countries. British diplomats said that the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, had been in "regular contact".
Britain maintains that the court proceedings are outside the government's authority.
Tehran has cut cultural and economic ties with Argentina, which had exported items such as rice wheat and sunflower oil to Iran.
The extradition proceedings come at awkward time for Iran as it faces mounting pressure from the US and European Union over its nuclear programme, and protests from Canada over the beating to death of a photojournalist.
Since the election of Mr Khatami's reformist government, Iran has tried to shed its militant image and play down its links with groups opposed to Israel.
The conservative daily newspaper Kayhan yesterday called for the expulsion of the British ambassador, Richard Dalton, because of the detention of Mr Soleimanpour. If the reformist government failed to do so, the newspaper warned "the Islamic Iranian nation ... will act itself".
Mr Soleimanpour, who is studying in Durham, is one of several Iranian diplomats named as suspects by the Argentinian authorities.
Argentina, Israel and the US have long suspected Iran or Iranian-backed members of Hizbullah were behind the bombing. Iran withdrew its ambassador from Buenos Aires in March in protest.
Argentinian authorities tried former police officers accused of providing a van used by the bombers, who packed it full of explosives.
The former Argentinian president Carlos Menem has denied a report in the New York Times that alleged he took a bribe to cover up Iran's alleged role in the attack.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1029027,00.html