TEHRAN: Iran on Thursday gave a Swedish diplomat in Tehran 48 hours to leave the country, after Sweden had expelled a staff member from the Iranian embassy in Stockholm.
The Swedish ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry in Tehran to protest against the Swedish decision, which was ‘unjustified and contrarytointernationallaw’, Iran’s foreign ministry said, in a statement broadcast by state television.
Swedish authorities had accused Iran of having long ‘conducted activities that threaten security in and against Sweden, targeting both individuals who oppose the Iranianregime and various Jewish and Israeli interests in our country’.
Iran called the accusations ‘baseless’ on Thursday.SwedishForeign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said the Iranian diplomat had been expelled over ‘activities not in accordance with the Vienna Convention’, which outlines practices for diplomatic missions and their staff.
Calling Tehran’s reaction ‘very regrettable’, she said that the Swedish staffer ‘was carrying out ordinary diplomatic activities in Iran’. Sweden has a large Iranian community, including government opponents living in exile.-AFP