Americas

Americas

UN Security Council strongly condemns attacks against British Embassy in Tehran

29 November 2011 20:49 (UTC +04:00)

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the attacks against United Kingdomâ€™s embassy in Tehran, Iran, which resulted in intrusions into diplomatic and consulate premises causing serious damage," said a press statement read out by Portuguese UN Ambassador Jose Filipe Moraes Cabral, who is the Security Council president of the month of November.

"The members of the Security Council recalled the fundamental principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises, and the obligations on host governments, including under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to take all appropriate steps to protect diplomatic and consular premises against any intrusion or damage, and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of these missions or impairment of their dignity," Cabral said.

He said that the Security Council called on the Iranian authorities to protect diplomatic and consular property and personnel, and to respect fully their international obligations in this regard.

Thousands of angry Iranians staged a protest before the British embassy in central Tehran early Tuesday, and some of them broke into the compound.

In front of the British Council compound in the Qolhak area in northern Tehran, some 300 students staged another protest and about 100 of them forced their way into the building despite the police prevention, local semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

British flags at both the embassy and the British Council were dragged down by the protesters and replaced with the Iranian national flags.

The rampage came one day after Iranâ€™s highest legislative body, Guardian Council of the Constitution, unanimously approved reducing the diplomatic ties with Britain in response to its " hostile" policy against Iran.

Britain severed all links with the Iranian banks last week as part of its new financial sanctions in the wake of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that expressed concern over Tehranâ€™s controversial nuclear program.