IRAN FUMES AS DUTCH EXPELS TWO ENVOYS

Tehran, July 8: Iran protested on Sunday against the Netherlands' expulsion of two of its diplomats and threatened to retaliate for the “unfriendly and destructive move”.

A spokesman for the Dutch intelligence service AIVD said on Friday that two employees of Iran’s embassy had been expelled on June 7, without providing further details. The Dutch ambassador to Tehran was subequently summoned to express Tehran’s “severe protest” at the move, Iran's foreign ministry said in an online statement.

“As earlier announced to the ambassador of the Netherlands, the Islamic Republic reserves the right to retaliate,” foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said in the statement.

The expulsion was “illogical and illegitimate” and Qassemi called on “Dutch officials to refrain from levelling baseless and absurd accusations”.

Qassemi also called on the Dutch government to explain “its move to shelter the criminal and terrorist members” of Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen.

Tehran banned the People's Mujahedeen in 1981 and the European Union put the group on a terror blacklist between 2002 and 2009. The two Iranian diplomats were expelled long before arrests announced on Monday by French, Belgian and German authorities of six people. — AFP