UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly summoned Iran’s most senior diplomat to Britain on Monday over alleged threats against London-based anti-Iran media.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly summoned Iran’s most senior diplomat to London on Monday over alleged threats against anti-Iranian media based in the European country.
The Iranian charge d’affaires Mehdi Hosseini Matin was called to the Foreign Office to receive the UK’s frank warning, the media reported.
Meanwhile, the British government announced new sanctions against Iran, targeting three Iranian judges, three members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and two regional governors, an update to a British government website showed on Monday.
Those added to the sanctions list were subject to an asset freeze and travel ban, the statement said.
The move in a coordinated move with the EU which imposed sanctions on two organizations and 32 Iranians on Monday in continuation of its intervention in Iranian internal affairs.
Since sporadic foreign-backed riots took place in Iran last summer, Western countries led by the United States started to tighten sanctions against Iran’s judicial and other authorities in a bid to continue the riots they had provoked and supported after the sudden death of a young Iranian lady, Mahsa Amini, while in Iran’s police custody.
The Islamic Republic of Iran sees the western countries’ accusations as part of intensified pressures aimed at pressuring it to give in to the West’s excessive demands in the nuclear talks.
According to a report, British Security Minister Tom Tugendhat meanwhile told parliament that police had advised Iran International to move to another location in the U.K. Until new studio is ready, the Persian-language outfit has decided to continue broadcasting from existing studios in the U.S., Tugendhat said.
“The U.K. will always stand up to countries who threaten our fundamental values of freedom of expression and the media,” Cleverly said.
The Western powers are doing possibly everything to bring down Iran, since talks on its Nuclear program with the West has failed dramatically.
The Iranian diplomat was previously summoned by the foreign secretary last month after Tehran executed two dangerous protesters.
