IRAN OFFICIALLY REJECTED BRITISH AMBASSADOR’S NOMINATION
TEHRAN-LONDON 8 Feb. (IPS) Iran-Britain relations received a severe blow last night after London officially acknowledged that Tehran has "conclusively rejected" the appointment of Mr. David Reddaway as Britain’s new Ambassador to Tehran.
"We can confirm that Iran has refused to accept David Reddaway as ambassador", a terse statement from the British Foreign Office said, adding that "There are no plans at present to put forward anyone else".
Iran's objections to Mr. Reddaway’s nomination first emerged last month in an Iranian hard-line newspaper "Jomhuri Islami", which belong to the regime’s stanch anti-american, anti-British leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, describing him as "a Jew, married to an Iranian "taqooti" (pro-Monarchist), speaks fluent farsi, with an American mother-in-law, who is both an MI6 and Zionist agent".
Britain insists that Mr Reddaway, 48, is a genuine diplomat and not an intelligence officer using diplomatic cover who joined the Foreign Office in 1975 and is fluent in Farsi, the main Iranian language. He was first posted to Tehran in 1977-78 and again in1990. He has also served in Madrid, New Delhi and Buenos Aires.
"None of the allegations against Mr Reddaway are justified. He was exceptionally well qualified for the job".
Relations between Iran and Britain improved considerably after the Iranian government signalled that it would not upheld the "fatwa" issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie, the British novelist over his controversial book, "The Satanic Verses", considered as heretic in many Muslim countries.
Officials said the access of the Iranian ambassador in London would be downgraded to the level of the charge d'affaires at the embassy in Tehran.
"This doesn't mean a complete reversal of our policy of critical engagement but it won't help and it means our dialogue will inevitably become more critical," said a British official, adding that no alternative would be nominated for now.
But in Tehran, Mr. Hamid Reza Asefi, the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s senior spokesman said it was Iran’s natural right to accept or not Mr. Reddaway’s credentials.
"This is not something unusual in diplomacy that one country rejects the proposal of another for naming representatives and should not affect (Iran-British) relations", the Iraqi-born Asefi Friday, quoted by Tehran Radio, without providing any reason for the decision.
The row over the appointment of Mr. Reddaway is another example of Iran’s "irrational" foreign diplomacy conducted and directed from the office of the leader, for, it comes at a time when Iran has been singled out by President George W. Bush as forming an "axis of evil" with North Korea and Iraq.
The characterisation was resisted by the European Union, of which Britain is an important member. Iran's rejection of Mr. Reddaway could hamper both British and other European nations efforts to moderate the American stance, diplomats said. ENDS IRAN BRITAIN DIPLOMATIC ROW 8202