Payvand – Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf initiated a lawsuit against Britain over the ownership of the Qolhak Garden in Northern Tehran which is still occupied by the British embassy “illegally”.

“I order my colleagues in the Tehran municipality to send the British embassy’s transgression case on Qolhak Garden to the Judiciary as soon as possible,” Qalibaf said in a meeting with a number of Tehran municipality directors on Monday.

He referred to Britain’s animosities towards Iran during the past decades, and said everyone is aware that the British government has attempted a lot to harm Iran’s national unity and territorial integrity and staged many other plots and conspiracies against Iran after the Islamic Revolution.

Qalibaf reiterated that in addition to these inimical behaviors, the British embassy in Tehran has for a long time usurped the Qolhak Garden, which is a part of Iranian soil and the Iranian nation is entitled to take its ownership back.

Iran has called on the British embassy in Tehran to return the Qolhak Garden which has been possessed illegally since the Qajar Dynasty.

Iran argues that Qolhak Garden belonged to Iranian Qajar King Nassereddin Shah and that the British Council took possession of this garden by force.

Some 162 members of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) wrote a letter in 2006 to the then speaker, Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, demanding an investigation over the ownership of the Qolhak Garden.
The investigation team reported that the garden belongs to Iran completely.

A meeting was organized in July 2007 to address the ownership of the compound. However the British side did not attend.

Source : Inside Of Iran