Britain’s ambassador leaves Iran after brief detention

PTI, Jan 15, 2020, 6:15 PM IST

Tehran: Iranian state-run media say the British ambassador to Iran has left the country after being arrested and briefly detained.

The state-run IRNA news agency says Robert Macaire left after being given prior notice. The report did not elaborate.

Macaire had been held after attending a candlelight vigil Saturday in Tehran over Iran shooting down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing 176 people.

The vigil quickly turned into an anti-government protest and Macaire left shortly after, only to be arrested by police.

Iran’s president warned Wednesday that European soldiers in the Mideast could be in danger after three nations challenged Tehran over breaking the limits of its nuclear deal.

Tehran’s top diplomat meanwhile acknowledged that Iranians were lied to for days following the Islamic Republic’s accidental shootdown of a Ukrainian jetliner that killed 176 people.

President Hassan Rouhani’s remarks in a televised Cabinet meeting represent the first direct threat he’s made to Europe as tensions remain high between Tehran and Washington over President Donald Trump withdrawing the US from the deal in May 2018.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s admission, which came at a summit in New Delhi on Wednesday, represents the first time an Iranian official referred to earlier claims from Tehran that a technical malfunction downed the Ukraine International Airlines flight as a lie.

The shootdown has sparked days of angry protests in the country. The current tensions between Iran and the US reached fever-pitch two weeks ago with the American drone strike in Baghdad that killed the powerful Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

The general had led Iranian proxy forces abroad, including those blamed for deadly roadside bomb attacks on US troops in Iraq.

Iran retaliated with a ballistic missile strike targeting Iraqi military bases housing US forces early last Wednesday, just before an anti-aircraft battery shot down the Ukrainian airliner taking off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport.

The head of the Guard Hossein Salami said in a speech that Iran’s war project was closed since the people stood against American pressure. Now they are moving toward peace.