Hussein Sheikholeslam, a foreign affairs adviser to parliament speaker Ali Larijani, told Iranian media
that contrary to remarks by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond,
“Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at
all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan.”
Hammond was in Iran on Monday for the
reopening of the UK embassy in Tehran, and said that Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani had indicated a “more nuanced approach” to Israel’s
existence. Hammond said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s
“revolutionary sloganizing” should be distinguished from “what Iran
actually does in the conduct of its foreign policy.”
...
Sheikholeslam told a Hamas news outlet earlier
this month that Iran has resisted pressure exerted by the P5+1 world
powers during the nuclear negotiations to halt its political involvement
in Gaza, Syria and Yemen.
“These powers admitted that the reason for
their pressure on us is our position on Israel,” he said. “We told them
that we reject the existence of any Israeli on this earth.”
Even Jeffrey Goldberg noticed the statement, but I doubt that the former IDF officer has figured out yet why that might be personally connected to him.
Britain reopens embassy in Tehran with 'death to England' still graffitied above Queen's portrait
Yes, that's the picture.
British Foreign Secretary and MP Phillip Hammond is in Tehran today, and I want to start this post with some of the tweets I posted today about Britain's tuches licking foreign policy chief.
British Foreign Secretary Hammond announced on Sunday that Britain will reopen its embassy in Tehran. In fact, it's already been reopened. Yes, with the graffiti pictured at the top.
Officials claimed that removing the graffiti without damaging the
building's elegant Victorian walls required specialists who had not yet
been brought in. But there was surprise that the offending graffiti,
which was written in Persian, had not been covered up in anyway prior to
Mr Hammond's visit. There were other signs of damage as well, including
mirrors that were still broken.
Mr Hammond declared on Sunday there "should be no limit" to what
Britain and Iran could achieve together when he reopened the UK Embassy
in Tehran.
Paying the first visit to Iran by a Foreign Secretary
for almost 12 years, Mr Hammond watched as the Union Flag was raised
and God Save the Queen played over a loudspeaker in the spacious Embassy
compound.
"In my experience, if you set down preconditions in a situation where
you have no dialogue, then you get stasis. We have a number of issues
which need to be resolved. The right thing to do is to establish a
channel for communication," said Mr Hammond.
Funny, I seem to recall Iran setting down some preconditions before the nuclear talks started, and they seem to have gotten everything they wanted.
For those who have forgotten, here's a picture of what happened the last time the British embassy in Tehran was open:
Confederation of Iranian Students statement on UK embassy attack
I received via email the following statement from the Confederation of Iranian Students and the Iranian Freedom Institute regarding the Basij-led attack (that's what they're calling it - the Iranians are calling the attackers 'students') on the British embassy in Tehran on Tuesday.
As the U.S. and its European allies begin to impose effective sanctions on the Islamic Republic, the western democracies should anticipate that the regime will initiate more of these fully-authorized, staged incidents under the guise of a student movement. The so-called students, of course, are plain-clothed basiji following orders from the regime. Even Moussa Ghornani, a member of the legal committee of the Iranian Parliament, admitted unwittingly in a statement that “the students who entered the British Embassy yesterday were members of one of the official and effective organizations within the regime.” The basiji “students” published an announcement in the Raja News (the official news agency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) that railed against the government of Britain because “this evil government had the audacity to sanction our Central Bank.”
The western democracies should take this incident as evidence that the recently imposed sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) have infuriated the regime. And for good reason. The CBI sanctions will disrupt the smooth flow of revenue to the regime that is essential to pay its loyalists, the basiji, and the Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership. The Iranian Freedom Institute (IFI) and the Confederation of Iranian Students (CIS) applauded the imposition of CBI sanctions noting that this is a major step in the right direction.
Contrary to the regime’s propaganda, the Iranian freedom student movement believes the regime has lost its legitimacy and has called repeatedly for its removal. The western democracies should not be misled by the regime’s subterfuge. The Iranian freedom student movement seeks a free, democratic and secular Iran. The Confederation of Iranian Students, in particular, has been at the forefront of this fight for basic human rights and freedoms that the Iranian people desperately seek. Be clear on this point. The Iranian regime, not the average Iranian citizen, is affected by the CBI sanctions and only the imposition of oil sanctions would have a decisive impact on the Islamic Republic.
IFI and CIS believe that the imposition of oil sanctions against the Islamic Republic will cut off the life blood of the regime – the revenue essential to meet the payrolls of its domestic security forces, the basiji and the Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership. The oil sanctions report prepared by the CIS presents a detailed analysis showing how a carefully developed and implemented plan, coordinated closely with the Saudi government, would cripple the Iranian regime and avoid shocking the international oil markets during the current period of international financial turmoil. In this regard, IFI and CIS strongly support French President Sarcozy’s call for international sanctions on the Iranian regime’s oil exports, and will continue their efforts to encourage the U.S. Congress to adopt bipartisan legislation toward that end.
Well, I'm glad to see we've finally done something effective. Imagine if we actually had shut down all access for the Central Bank of Iran to the world financial markets. Maybe they'd even think about stopping the nuclear program.
And with that, I'd like to direct a question or two to whomever sent me this email (yes, I got this anonymously - that's how all these things come - but obviously whoever sent it is at least aware that this blog exists and is probably looking out for this post).
If you were to unseat the Mullahs and Ahmadinejad, what would you do with Iran's nuclear program?
If you were to unseat the Mullahs and Ahmadinejad, what kind of relations, if any, would you anticipate having with the State of Israel?
Two and a half years ago, during the Green Revolution, I could not get straight answers to either of those questions. And so, we will try again.
Iranian parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Aladdin Burucerdi warned Wednesday that the UK will suffer "the consequences" of its decision to expel Iranian diplomats stationed in London following the storming of its embassy in Tehran on Tuesday.
Following the announcement by UK's Foreign Secretary William Hague on Wednesday, Burucerdi called other European countries to avoid taking similar measures, after Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy had already taken diplomatic steps against Iran.
"We recommend that other European countries avoid following in Britain's and the Unites States' footsteps," Burucerdi said. "The parliament approved downgrading the diplomatic relations with Britain but Iran's public is pleased that the British diplomats are no longer in Tehran."
France, The Netherlands, Italy and Germany have all recalled their ambassadors to Iran for 'consultations.'
Endangering diplomats is one of the few things that can even rile up the Europeans, and Iran's failure to protect the British embassy on Tuesday has apparently touched a raw nerve. Whether this will translate into a new willingness to impose effective sanctions against Iran even at the cost of each individual country's trade with the Islamic state remains to be seen.
Britain brings home diplomatic staff, expels all Iranian diplomats
Following the Iranian attack on Britain's embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, Britain has shut down its embassy in Tehran and removed all its diplomats. Then it shut down the Iranian embassy in London and gave Iran's diplomats 48 hours to leave.
JPost reports that according to Der Spiegel, Germany has also recalled its ambassador to Tehran for consultations, and according to Israel Radio a long list of European countries called in Iran's ambassadors in their capitals on Wednesday to protest the attack in Tehran on Tuesday, and Italy is considering closing its embassy in Tehran.
According to this report, Norway has closed its embassy in Tehran and Germany has recalled its ambassador for consultations. If the Germans close their embassy, that would be very significant - Germany is Iran's largest trading partner in Europe doing $4 billion per year.
"If any country makes it impossible for us to operate on their soil they cannot expect to have a functioning embassy here," [Foreign Secretary William] Hague said.
"This does not amount to the severing of diplomatic relations in their entirety. It is action that reduces our relations with Iran to the lowest level consistent with the maintenance of diplomatic relations," he added.
Hague said it was "fanciful" to think the Iranian authorities could not have protected the British embassy, or that the assault could have taken place without "some degree of regime consent".
He said European Union foreign ministers would discuss the embassy attack at a meeting in Brussels later on Wednesday and on Thursday. The EU ministers would discuss "further action which needs to be taken in the light of Iran's continued pursuit of a nuclear weapons program," he said.
Let's go to the videotape.
There's a summary of other European reactions to Tuesday's events in Tehran here.
Militant students are said to have removed the British flag, burnt it and replaced it with the Iranian flag.
They were also shown live on Iranian state TV throwing stones at embassy windows and breaking them.
The move comes after Iran resolved to reduce ties following the UK's decision to impose further sanctions on it.
The students clashed with anti-riot police and chanted "the embassy of Britain should be taken over" and "death to England", AP reports.
One protester was reported to be waving a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth II.
On Sunday, Iran's parliament voted by a large majority to downgrade diplomatic relations with the UK after the UK Treasury imposed sanctions on Iranian banks the previous week, accusing them of facilitating the country's nuclear programme.
Iranian police have reportedly managed to take control of the rally and asked the protesters to leave the territory of the embassy.
Earlier a group of students clashed with riot police as they climbed over the embassy’s gate, rushed into the building and started throwing documents from the windows.
Protesters have also started burning documents seized from the embassy’s offices, Mehr News Agency reports.
The British government has confirmed "a serious incursion" at UK embassy in Tehran and asked Iranian government to make every effort to end the crisis immediately.
Britain’s Foreign Office is "outraged" by the incursion by a "significant number of demonstrators" into the British embassy in Tehran, the BBC reports.
Tuesday’s protest was initially staged as a peaceful one, as thousands gathered to commemorate the anniversary of Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari’s death. According to the Iranian government he was murdered in a joint operation by Israel’s Mossad and UK’s MI6.
More pictures that make it clear that this incident was much more serious than appears in the video here.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
