Britain regrets Iranian law to expel ambassador in retaliation for new sanctions

Britain regrets an Iranian parliamentary bill demanding the expulsion of its ambassador to Tehran and is considering its next steps, Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman said Monday.

Iranian lawmakers voted on Sunday to expel the British ambassador within two weeks and Iran’s Guardians Council approved the move on Monday, making it law, state television’s website reported.

“Clearly we regret their decision to expel our ambassador. I think that decision will do nothing to help the Iranian regime address its growing isolation from the international community,” Cameron’s spokesman told reporters.

“We will think about precisely how we should respond but there will be a meeting of EU heads of mission in Tehran today to discuss that and there will be further discussions on Thursday at the (European Union) foreign affairs council.”

Britain’s Foreign Office on Sunday promised that it would respond “robustly” if ambassador Dominick Chilcott is expelled.

In response to Western sanctions on Iran, lawmakers there have voted to downgrade diplomatic ties with Britain to the more junior charge d’affaires level and for trade and financial ties to be reduced to a minimum.

Passed by legislators who chanted “Death to England” on Sunday, the law looked like a payback for London’s decision to ban British banks from dealing with Iranian ones, including the Central Bank of Iran (CBI).

Members of parliament said Iran would take similar action against any other countries that follow Britain’s example.

European Union foreign ministers are due to meet on Thursday to approve new sanctions that could cut financial links and ban oil imports from Iran over suspicions that it is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Minister refused entry

Iranian media reported that Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi had been refused entry to EU air space to attend a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the Netherlands on Monday.

Student news agency ISNA said Tehran had summoned the Hungarian ambassador to explain why Salehi’s plane had been refused permission to cross the EU country’s air space, quoting an Iranian foreign ministry source saying technical problems cited by Hungarian authorities were “unconvincing”.

The Hungarian and Iranian foreign ministries were not immediately available for comment.

The European measures are part of a U.S.-led drive to isolate the Islamic Republic and force it to suspend uranium enrichment, which Tehran says is its sovereign right but which the West says looks suspiciously like an atom bomb program.

Washington stopped short of imposing sanctions that would stop other countries dealing with Iran’s central bank, considered a “nuclear option” due to the devastating effect it could have on Iran’s oil-based economy.

The central bank receives payment for the more than 2 million barrels of oil Iran exports each day, so cutting it off from the global financial system would be a hammer blow.

The United States did declare the CBI an area of “primary money laundering concern,” a step designed to dissuade non-U.S. banks from dealing with it. The bank denied the charge.

“The financial resources of the CBI are principally from the sale of oil and its derivatives which are deposited with this bank on the basis of the country’s monetary and banking law, and they are managed by the international banking system,” the CBI said in a statement on its website.

“The alleged performing of laundering operations on this source is a completely baseless and unprofessional claim.”