London, December 02: Britain’s new sanctions on Iran’s banking system and energy sector are provocations to put the Islamic Republic on a confrontational path with the West, a political observer tells.
“The other side (the UK) is provoking them (Iranian government). Hopefully the Tehran government will not fall in some of these traps that I think are being laid for it in a very dangerous way,” Franklin Lamb, an international lawyer, said.
Britain imposed new sanctions on Iran’s banking system and energy sector after Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, released his latest report on November 8, accusing Iran of pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program.
The Beirut-based analyst described the economic sanctions as “drastic,” adding that such punitive measures have not been followed even by UK’s staunchest ally, the United States.
Commenting on the Iranian students’ protest rallies outside the UK embassy in Tehran, Lamb said Britain, with the help of its allies — specially the US and Israel — will in all likelihood use the incident to demonize Iran and escalate the tension between Iran and the West.
Lamb cautioned Iranian officials against the UK’s motives in the whole affair, expressing hope they will exercise utmost care in dealing with the situation.
“I think that the Iranian government’s record of even-handedness and calmness under pressure should and will prevail,” he said.
Hundreds of Iranian students staged a protest rally outside the UK Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, pulling down the UK flag and demanding the expulsion of the British envoy.
Protesters also staged another gathering outside a second British diplomatic compound in northern Tehran.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry expressed regret in a statement on Tuesday over the “unacceptable actions” of a number of protesters during the demonstration in front of the embassy.
Following the incident, Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague announced on Wednesday that London is withdrawing its diplomatic staff from Iran and that the Iranian embassy in London will be closed.
On Thursday, Iran’s embassy in London came under attack by a group of anti-revolutionary elements in an organized campaign after its closure by the British government.
——Agencies