What needs to know about relations between UK and Iran
2023.01.14 02:28
What needs to know about relations between UK and Iran
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – After Iranian authorities executed British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari for spies, charges he had denied, relations between Britain and Iran, which had been strained for decades, came back to the forefront.
The most significant bilateral developments since the 1950s are listed below:
1953: The popular Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh is overthrown and Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi is brought back to power with the assistance of Britain and the United States.
1979: The Shah is overthrown by the Islamic Revolution.
The British embassy in Tehran is closed in 1980.
British diplomatic relations with Iran are fully restored in 1988.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calls on Muslims to kill British author Salman Rushdie for blasphemy against Islam in his book “The Satanic Verses” in February 1989. This led the UK to end diplomatic ties with Iran in March.
1990: Partially restored diplomatic relations
In 1994, Iran denies being in contact with the illegal Irish Republican Army, but relations get worse. Over the IRA issue, Iran and Britain expel each other’s diplomats.
1998: Iran officially withdraws its support for the Rushdie assassination plan.
1999: Iran claims that British-Tehran relations have been elevated to ambassadorial status.
After the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw travels to Iran in September to strengthen an international “anti-terror” coalition.
Eight British military personnel are detained by Iran in 2004 for entering its waters from Iraq. Later, they are released.
2005: Britain asserts that Iran or the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah were the source of the technology that was used in roadside bombs against British soldiers in Iraq. Iran denies this claim. In the same year, Iran says that British bombings in Iran killed six people. London disputes this.
In the Shatt al-Arab waterway that separates Iran and Iraq, Iranian forces take eight sailors and seven marines from their patrol boat in March 2007. In April they are released.
In protest of Salman Rushdie’s knighthood, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summons the British ambassador in June 2007.
Britain freezes Iran’s assets in June 2009 as a result of Western sanctions imposed due to Iran’s disputed nuclear program. In the same month, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls Britain “the most treacherous” of Iran’s enemies, prompting Britain to protest to Iran. Two of Tehran’s diplomats are expelled from London.
The final of nine Iranians who worked at the British embassy and were detained in June for alleged involvement in unrest following an Iranian election are released on bail by Iran in July 2009.
2011: Britain imposes financial sanctions on Iran, mandating that all UK financial institutions cease all business with Iranian counterparts and the central bank of Iran. A bill introduced in Iran’s parliament to cut ties with Britain is approved by the Guardian Council.
Iran’s embassy in London is closed and its staff is expelled by Britain in November 2011, claiming that the British mission in Tehran was stormed without permission that month.
Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China reach a nuclear agreement in 2015. In exchange for the lifting of numerous foreign sanctions, the agreement stipulated that Iran would accept restrictions on its nuclear program. Within hours of Britain resuming diplomatic relations, Iran reopens its London embassy.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian aid worker who worked for Thomson Reuters (NYSE:), is detained by Iran in April 2016. Foundation, a charitable organization that operates independently of Thomson Reuters and Reuters, its news subsidiary. She denied the charge of attempting to overthrow the clerical rulers, but she was later found guilty of it.
A tweet in May 2019 that stated that Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie was “solid and irrevocable” led Twitter to suspend the account of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, another British-Iranian dual national, return to Britain from Iran in March 2022.
At a literary event in the state of New York in August 2022, Salman Rushdie is stabbed on stage. No one has the right to make allegations against Tehran, according to the Foreign Ministry of Iran. Rushdie’s attacker is praised by a number of Iranian hardline newspapers.
Britain imposes sanctions on three Iranian military figures and a manufacturer of defense equipment in October 2022 for providing Russia with drones used to attack Ukrainian targets.
November 2022: According to the head of the domestic spy agency in Britain, Iran’s intelligence services have attempted to kidnap or kill at least ten British citizens or people living in Britain.
Seven people with ties to Britain are detained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in December 2023 as a result of protests against the government.
Alireza Akbari, a former Iranian Defense Ministry official who is British-Iranian, is executed by Iran in January 2023 on charges of spying for Britain. According to state media, he was involved in the assassination of a prominent nuclear scientist in Iran in 2020. The charges were denied by Akbari.
More British citizen was executed in Iran
