Foreign Office withdraws all diplomatic staff from Tehran LONDON – Britain said Wednesday it had ordered the immediate closure of Iran's embassy in London and had closed its own embassy in Tehran after it was stormed by protesters. “The Iranian charge (d'affaires) in London is being informed now that we require the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy in London and that all Iranian diplomatic staff must leave the United Kingdom within the next 48 hours,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague told parliament. “We have now closed the British embassy in Tehran. We have decided to evacuate all our staff and as of the last few minutes, the last of our UK-based staff have now left Iran,” he said. William Hague told the House of Commons that Britain had also pulled its entire diplomatic staff out of Iran for their safety following the violence. Hague said the private quarters of staff and Britain's ambassador were trashed, the main embassy office set on fire and personal possessions belonging to British diplomats stolen by a regime-backed Basij militia group. The scenes were reminiscent of Iranians' seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Hague confirmed that Britain and allies would consider other measures at a European Union foreign ministers meeting scheduled Thursday. “We should be clear from the outset that this is an organization controlled by elements of the Iranian regime,” Hague said. “The idea that the Iranian authorities could not have protected our embassy or that this assault could have taken place without some degree of regime consent is fanciful.” Both France and Germany were likely to take their own diplomatic action following the attacks, Hague said. Hague also announced that Iranian ambassadors had been summoned in countries across Europe to receive strong protests over the storming of the British embassy. “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.
