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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards arrested a number of international diplomats together with a Briton, accusing them of “spying”, the Fars information company and state tv stated Wednesday.
However the British authorities rapidly denied that any of its personnel had been arrested, describing the reviews as “utterly false”.
The developments coincide with heightening tensions between Tehran and world powers over long-stalled makes an attempt to revive a 2015 nuclear deal and a latest uptick in confirmed detentions of Western nationals within the nation.
“The Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence service recognized and arrested diplomats from international embassies who have been spying in Iran,” Fars stated, including {that a} British diplomat was subsequently expelled from the nation.
State tv nevertheless reported that the Briton, recognized as Giles Whitaker, the UK authorities’s deputy head of mission in Iran, was solely expelled from “the world” the place the diplomats had been arrested in central Iran.
State tv accused him of “finishing up intelligence operations” in navy areas.
Video confirmed photos of a person introduced as Whitaker talking in a room.
A state TV journalist stated the diplomat “was amongst those that went to the Shahdad desert along with his household as vacationers”, referring to an space in central Iran.
“As the pictures present, this individual took photographs… in a prohibited space the place on the similar time a navy train was going down,” the broadcaster stated.
Britain’s authorities categorically denied the reviews.
“Reviews of the arrest of a British diplomat in Iran are utterly false,” a international ministry spokesman stated in London.
– Detainees ‘took soil samples’ –
The quantity, nationality and date of arrest of the opposite diplomats detained was not instantly clear.
However state tv stated that “apparently Israel needs to open a file on the doable navy dimension of Iran’s nuclear program, utilizing nationals from third international locations who’re linked to international embassies,” it charged.
Israel is staunchly against the 2015 nuclear settlement between Iran and world powers, perceiving it as a menace to its safety.
State tv additionally confirmed photos of a person it recognized as “Maciej Walczak, head of the microbiology division on the Nicolaus Copernicus College in Poland”.
“This college is linked to the Zionist regime,” it stated, referring to Israel.
Walczak, whose nationality was not specified, “entered Iran with three different folks within the context of scientific exchanges however he went to the desert area of Shahdad as a vacationer whereas missile assessments have been being carried out”, state tv stated.
It stated he took rock and soil samples.
Fars in the meantime stated these arrested took rock samples within the desert for “espionage” functions.
State tv introduced one other man, recognized as “Ronald, the partner of the Austrian embassy’s cultural adviser” who it stated went to a village within the Damghan space east of Tehran and “took rock samples”.
He was additionally accused of “filming a navy space in Tehran,” the broadcaster stated.
– Nuclear deadlock, different detentions –
The US walked out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 below then president Donald Trump, who proceeded to reimpose biting sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to step away from most of the nuclear commitments it made below the accord.
Iran has held direct talks with remaining events to the deal — and oblique talks with the US — since April 2021 in a bid to revive the deal, however these negotiations have been at an deadlock since March.
Qatar final week hosted oblique talks in Doha in a bid to get the Vienna course of again on observe, however these discussions broke up after two days with none breakthrough.
Over a dozen Western nationals are held in Iran in what activists argue is a coverage of hostage-taking aimed toward extracting concessions from the West.
Belgium’s parliament on Wednesday accredited a controversial prisoner-swap treaty with Iran in a primary studying of a textual content that also must be submitted to a full vote to be ratified.
Additionally Wednesday Iran accused a French couple detained in Could whereas on vacation of allegedly “undermining the safety” of the nation, the judicial authority stated.
The French authorities has condemned their arrest as “baseless” and demanded their fast launch.
Final month Amnesty Worldwide known as on the British authorities to analyze Iran’s six-year detention of twin nationwide Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, deploring it as “an act of hostage-taking”.
She was launched house to the UK together with one other detainee early this yr, after the UK agreed to pay a longstanding debt to Tehran.
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