Iran ‘fines’ UK £750,000 for tree surgery at embassy

But the Gulhak Garden, as the 200,000sqm site is known, is at the centre of a row between London and Tehran which threatens to further strain relations that have long been tense.

The compound’s British “occupiers” have been accused of environmental vandalism after they allegedly cut down and burned more than 300 trees.

Tehran officials said last week they have slapped the British embassy with a £790,000 fine for the “crime”.

Britain insists no healthy trees were felled, but had to remove a “small number” that died of “natural causes and become dangerously unstable” after the compound’s water supply was disrupted by the extension of the Tehran Metro nearly three years ago.

The embassy has been working with the Iranian authorities, including the Tehran Municipality, “to re-establish a water supply as a matter of urgency to ensure that any environmental damage is kept to a minimum”, a spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said.

Tehran’s mayor, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, has announced that he is going to court in an attempt to reclaim the Gulhak compound. He insists the British embassy has no legal right to the prime property.

The compound, bordered by high walls, is home to a cemetery with the graves of more than 500 British and Commonwealth soldiers. Several British diplomats and some Iranian embassy staff are housed in the Gulhak complex, although ambassadors have lived several miles away at the historic British embassy on Ferdowsi Avenue in central Tehran. Observers suspect Mr Qalibaf may be using the Gulhak issue to boost his profile ahead of the 2013 presidential election, which he is due to contest. Baiting a former imperial power that the regime derides as the “Little Satan” could appeal to many.

“The role of the British government in trying to destroy our national unity and territorial integrity is known to everyone,” the mayor said.

On Monday, Britain cut all ties with Iranian banks in an effort to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Foreign secretary William Hague last week refused to rule out military action against Iran in the long term if there is no progress in Tehran’s co-operation with the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

The row over the Gulhak compound is adding to the friction. The land was given to Britain at the height of its imperial power by the Qajar monarchy in the 19th century for use as a summer residence for the British ambassador. Gulhak was then a small village, well outside the capital.

Demonstrating against the tree felling earlier this month, Iranian protesters carried placards reading: “There is no place for the old fox of colonialism in the Gulhak Garden” and “Death to Britain.”

The Iranian authorities last made an attempt to reclaim Gulhak five years ago when MPs demanded its return so that it could be turned into an anti-colonial museum.

Britain has not been notified of any fine over the tree-cutting and has only heard about a legal challenge to Gulhak’s ownership from Iranian media reports. But a foreign office spokesperson said: “Based on previous court documents, we are confident that we legally own the site.”