Iran and Britain’s historical past of strained relations By Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) – British-Iranian relations, which have been strained for many years, have been again within the highlight after Iranian authorities executed British-Iranian nationwide Alireza Akbari for spying, fees he had denied.

Here’s a timeline of most important bilateral developments because the Nineteen Fifties:

1953 – Britain and the US assist orchestrate the overthrow of fashionable Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and restore Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to energy.

1979 – Islamic Revolution overthrows the U.S.-backed Shah.

1980 – Britain closes its embassy in Tehran.

1988 – Britain restores full diplomatic relations with Iran.

February 1989 – Iranian Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calls on Muslims to kill British creator Salman Rushdie for blasphemy towards Islam in his e book “The Satanic Verses”, prompting Britain to interrupt diplomatic relations in March.

1990 – Partial diplomatic relations are restored.

1994 – Britain accuses Iran of contacts with the outlawed Irish Republican Military, a cost Iran denies however relations worsen. Iran and Britain expel every others’ diplomats over the IRA situation.

1998 – Iran formally dissociates itself from the decision to kill Rushdie.

1999 – Iran says relations between Tehran and Britain have been upgraded to ambassadorial degree.

September 2001 – British International Minister Jack Straw visits Iran to strengthen a global “anti-terror” coalition after the Sept. 11, 2001 assaults on the US.

2004 – Iran arrests eight British army personnel for straying into its waters from Iraq. They’re later freed.

2005 – Britain says there may be proof Iran or the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah was the supply of expertise utilized in roadside bombs towards British troopers in Iraq, a cost Tehran Iran denies. The identical 12 months, Iran accuses Britain of being behind bombings that killed six folks in Iran. London denies it.

March 2007 – Iranian forces seize eight Royal Navy sailors and 7 marines from their patrol boat within the Shatt al-Arab waterway separating Iran and Iraq. They’re freed in April.

June 2007 – Iran’s International Ministry summons the British ambassador to protest towards the award of a British knighthood to Salman Rushdie.

June 2009 – Britain freezes Iranian property below Western sanctions imposed over Iran’s disputed nuclear programme. The identical month, Britain protests to Iran after Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls Britain “essentially the most treacherous” of Iran’s enemies. London and Tehran every expel two of the opposite’s diplomats.

July 2009 – Iran releases on bail the final of 9 Iranians who labored on the British embassy and who had been detained in June for alleged involvement in unrest following an Iranian election.

2011 – Britain imposes monetary sanctions on Iran, ordering all UK monetary establishments to cease doing enterprise with Iranian counterparts and Iran’s central financial institution. Iran’s Guardian Council approves a parliamentary invoice lowering ties with Britain.

November 2011 – Britain shuts Iran’s embassy in London and expels its employees, saying the storming of the British mission in Tehran that month couldn’t have taken place with out consent from Iran’s authorities.

2015 – Iran reaches a nuclear take care of the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. Below the settlement Iran accepted curbs on its nuclear programme in return for a lifting of many overseas sanctions. Iran reopens its embassy in London hours after Britain restores diplomatic ties.

April 2016 – Iran detains British-Iranian support employee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was employed by the Thomson Reuters (NYSE:) Basis, a charity working independently of Thomson Reuters and its information subsidiary Reuters. She is later convicted of searching for to overthrow the clerical rulers, a cost she denied.

Might 2019 – Twitter suspended Iranian Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s account over a tweet that mentioned Khomeini’s fatwa towards Rushdie was “strong and irrevocable”.

March 2022 – Zaghari-Ratcliffe and one other British-Iranian twin nationwide, Anoosheh Ashoori, return to Britain from Iran.

August 2022 – Salman Rushdie is stabbed on stage at a literary occasion in New York state. Iran’s International Ministry says nobody has the proper to degree accusations towards Tehran. A number of Iranian hardline newspapers reward Rushdie’s attacker.

October 2022 – Britain imposes sanctions on three Iranian army figures and a defence producer for supplying Russia with drones used to assault targets in Ukraine.

November 2022 – The top of Britain’s home spy company says Iran’s intelligence providers have made not less than 10 makes an attempt to kidnap or kill British nationals or people in Britain.

December 2023 – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards arrest seven folks with hyperlinks to Britain over anti-government protests.

January 2023 – Iran sentences to demise and executes British-Iranian nationwide Alireza Akbari, a former Iranian Defence Ministry official, on fees of spying for Britain. State media say he was concerned within the 2020 assassination in Iran of a high nuclear scientist. Akbari denied the fees.