Iranian diplomats return home to a hero’s welcome

All Iranian diplomats, who were given 48 hours to leave Britain in response to the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran, arrived in the Iranian capital in the early hours of Saturday and received a warm welcome from a number of students. A number of students from various universities entered the British Embassy compound in Tehran on November 29 and pulled down the Union Jack to protest against the British government’s hostile policies toward the Islamic Republic. Britain shut the Iranian Embassy in London and expelled its entire staff on November 30. Upon arriving at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport, Iran’s charge d’affaires to Britain Safar Ali Eslamiyan told reporters, “Despite all the pressure, all the staff of the Iranian Embassy in London left the country’s soil with dignity,” and a number of the British government’s officials saw them off. He also said that no attack was carried out against the Iranian Embassy in London over the past few days. Asked if there is a possibility that the relations between Tehran and London will be increased again, Eslamiyan stated, “Iran is ready to have relations with all countries on condition that the country’s national sovereignty is respected and Iran’s national interests are served.” Managing Director of the Iran Air Farhad Parvaresh told the Mehr News Agency on Saturday that a charter Airbus was sent to London to carry the diplomats back home as soon as possible. Britain will pay the price for its attitude toward Iran Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast, who attended the welcome ceremony, commented on Britain’s move to expel Iranian diplomats and said, “Britain will pay the price for its inappropriate attitude toward the Iranian nation over the past 100 years.” “We will take a reciprocal action,” he added. He also said, “The Iranian nation is cultured and civilized, and we pursue all issues through legal channels and international regulations. They (the United States and Israel) are seeking to produce documents to accuse Iran of flouting the law and depict the country’s internal situation as insecure and provoke embassies to review their ties with us, and we must show that this is not the case. We will not allow them to (create) discord among our people.” After the Iranian parliament approved a bill “mandating that Iran-Britain relations be downgraded, this country’s officials felt humiliated, and hastily tried to” divert attention from the parliamentary ratification, he stated. The Guardian Council approved a bill to downgrade ties with the British government ratified by the Iranian Majlis on November 28. Mehmanparast added, “They (the West) intend to depict Iran as the main threat. They want to give the impression that we are the cause of insecurity and instability and the (country) to blame for terrorist actions. And, through the exertion of pressure, they prepared the (International Atomic Energy) Agency’s report in a way that it expresses concern about Iran’s activities, and all this are meant to advance the Iranophobia project with the aim of diverting attention from their stance toward regional developments and creating discord among other countries in the Middle East region and us. This is a conspiracy.” IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano released a report on Iran’s nuclear program on November 8, in which he claimed that Iran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb. Elsewhere in his remarks, Mehmanparast commented on the victory of Islamists in the elections held in Tunisia and Egypt, noting, “This issue has intimidated the Americans and the Zionists, and we should not allow their plans in the region to create diversion in the movement of nations. We, through wisdom and tact, should not allow them to exploit (the situation).”