UK’s ambassador to Iran faces expulsion over bank sanctions

Iran’s parliament voted by a large majority yesterday to expel the British ambassador, just weeks after Dominick Chilcott took up his challenging post.

And a stage-managed protest against “evil” London’s latest sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme is due today outside Britain’s fortress-like embassy in central Tehran, the scene of sometimes violent anti-Western demonstrations in recent years.

One deputy warned that angry Iranians could storm the compound as they did the US embassy in 1979.

The UK infuriated Iranian politicians this month by sanctioning Iran’s central bank, which Britain accused of helping to fund Iran’s nuclear programme.

Tehran warned that other countries “behaving in a similar manner” would also be punished.

“This is only the beginning,” Ali Larijani, the powerful parliamentary speaker vowed.

The EU will this week consider a French call to go for Iran’s economic jugular by banning Iranian oil exports.

The annual volume of trade between Iran and Britain is about $500 million. Iranian oil exports are a large component of this trade. In the first six month of 2011, Iran sold some 11,000 barrels of crude to Britain per day, half a per cent of Iran’s daily production.

Britain branded the move to expel Mr Chilcott “regrettable” and “unwarranted”.

It would do “nothing to help the regime address their growing isolation or international concerns about their nuclear programme and human rights record,” a spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, told The Scotsman. “If the Iranian government acts on this we will respond robustly in consultation with our international partners.”

The bill, which gives Mr Chilcott two weeks to pack his bags, has to be approved by Iran’s hardline Guardians Council. That is likely to be a formality.

Tehran also intends to scale down economic relations with Britain, already in decline, to a “minimum”. The bill was approved by 171 of the 196 parliamentarians present. Four voted against and 11 abstained.

On another front, Tehran’s mayor, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, filed a lawsuit at the end of last month contesting Britain’s ownership of a second large diplomatic compound in north Tehran.

London and Tehran will still maintain diplomatic relations, although at the reduced level of charge d’affaires. Several MPs wanted ties severed completely.

“We must place a lock on the British embassy and ignore them until they come begging like the Americans,” said one, Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash.

The US severed ties with Iran in 1980 after its embassy was seized by militant students who held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. The building now houses Revolutionary Guards.

The impact of Mr Chilcott’s expulsion will be mainly symbolic, however. Until his arrival last month, Britain was represented at charge d’affaires level for several months by Jane Marriott, who is regarded as highly competent.

She will once more head the diplomatic mission if Mr Chilcott is forced to leave.

Britain may find it hard to retaliate in kind against Iran which has no ambassador in London to expel in a tit-for-tat action.

Britain sanctioned Iran’s central bank after a report by the UN’s nuclear watchdog this month strongly suggested that the Islamic republic had conducted research into nuclear weapons.