TEHRAN, Iran — U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said Iran’s failure to defend the British embassy from an attack in Tehran was a disgrace that will have serious consequences.
TEHRAN, Iran — U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said Iran’s failure to defend the British embassy from an attack in Tehran was a disgrace that will have serious consequences.
Cameron called the storming of the embassy in Tehran on Tuesday “outrageous and indefensible.”
Iranian protesters stormed two British Embassy compounds, smashing windows and burning the British flag during a rally to demonstrate against sanctions imposed by Britain, live Iranian television showed.
The prime minister said all embassy staff have been accounted for and praised Britain’s ambassador to Iran for handling a “dangerous situation with calm and professionalism.”
Cameron said the Iranian government will face “serious consequences” for “its unacceptable failure” to protect diplomats in line with international law.
He said those measures will be considered in the coming days, adding that Iran’s government must immediately secure Britain’s compound and ensure the safety of its embassy staff.
Several dozen protesters broke away from a crowd of a few hundred protesters outside the main embassy compound, scaled the embassy gates and went inside. Iranian security forces appeared to do little to stop them.
The demonstrators threw molotov cocktails and one waved a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth apparently found inside the main compound, the state TV showed.
PhotoBlog: Iranian protesters break into British Embassy in Tehran
An NBC News cameraman at the scene reported that the protesters tore down the British flag and replaced it with the Iranian flag.
The White House said the United States condemned the incident and urged Iran to prosecute the offenders.
The Associated Press reported that the protesters, numbering in the dozens, were hardline students and that they clashed with riot police.
They chanted, “The Embassy of Britain should be taken over” and “Death to England.”
Less than two hours later, police appeared to regain control of the site. But the official IRNA news agency said about 300 protesters entered the British ambassador’s residence in another part of the city and replaced British flags with Iranian ones.
Without specifying which compound it was referring to, the semi-official Mehr news agency said embassy employees fled. “They left the building a few minutes ago through the back door,” the report said.
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The British Foreign Office confirmed the “incursion” by demonstrators and vandalism to embassy property in a statement, and said it was “outraged.”
“Under international law, including the Vienna Convention,” the Iranian government has “a clear duty to protect diplomats and Embassies in their country and we expect them to act urgently to bring the situation under control and ensure the safety of our staff and security of our property,” the statement said.
The Foreign Office said it was in contact with embassy officials. Officials were still checking on the well-being of workers and diplomats, a spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity in line with standing policy.
It later issued a statement calling on Iranian authorities “to act with utmost urgency to ensure the situation is brought under control and to protect our diplomatic compound, as they are obliged to do under international law.”
It advised British nationals in Iran to “stay indoors, keep a low profile and await further advice.”
New sanctions
The incident followed Britain’s imposition of new sanctions on the Islamic state last week over its nuclear program.
London banned all British financial institutions from doing business with their Iranian counterparts, including the Central Bank of Iran, as part of a new wave of sanctions by Western countries.
Iran’s Guardian Council approved a bill on Monday to downgrade Iran’s ties with Britain, one day after the Iranian parliament approved the measure compelling the government to expel the British ambassador in retaliation for the sanctions.
In parliament in Tehran on Sunday, a lawmaker warned that Iranians angered by the sanctions could storm the British Embassy as they did to the U.S. mission in 1979.
Tensions with Britain date back to the 19th century when the Persian monarchy gave huge industrial concessions to London, which later included significant control over Iran’s oil industry.
But they have become increasingly strained as the West accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons — a charge Tehran denies.
In recent years, Iran was angered by Britain’s decision in 2007 honor author Salman Rushdie with a knighthood.
Rushdie went into hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or religious edict, ordering Muslims to kill the author because his novel “The Satanic Verses” allegedly insulted Islam.
The decision shortly after Iran detained 15 British sailors and marines in March 2007 for allegedly entering the country’s territorial waters in the Gulf — a claim Britain denies. The 15 were released after nearly two weeks in captivity.
In 2006, angry mobs burned the Danish flag and attacked Danish and other Western embassies in Tehran in protest to the reprinting of a cartoon deemed insulting of the Prophet Muhammad in the Nordic country’s newspapers.
Source : NBC News