From: mtaghavi@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Amir Taghavi)
Subject: Iran orders expulsion of three Britons
Keywords: Iran, great britain
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 18:59:38 GMT


	LONDON (UPI) -- A diplomatic battle between Iran and Britain deepened
Saturday when Tehran ordered out two Britons and an Indian national in
apparent retaliation for Britain's eviction last month of three alleged
spies.
	The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned Britain's acting charge
d'affaires, Craig Shelton, and told him the three men were guilty of 
``illegal activities'' and must leave the country within one week,
Iranian and British officials said.
	``What it looks like is a retaliation for the three Iranian nationals
who the home secretary ordered deported in July,'' a British Foreign
Office spokesman said.
	The three Iranians, who had been working at the Iranian Embassy in
London, ``had been involved in intelligence activities which were
completely unacceptable,'' said the British spokesman, who declined to
be identified.
	The three ordered evicted Saturday were identified by the British
Foreign Office as Raju Varughese, an Indian national who worked in Iran
as an accountant, and British nationals Alan Charles Cordier and Martin
William Boothby, who lived and worked in Iran.
	The Foreign Office spokesman said he had no further information on
what the three men were doing in Iran, but said they did not work for
the British government.
	The spokesman also said it was unclear why the Iranians included an
Indian national in the group facing deportation, although a report
carried by Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency said the Tehran
government believed all three were British nationals.
	The IRNA report, monitored in Athens, gave no word on the specific
charges against the three men, but the expulsion orders came 11 days
after Britain ordered Iranian Embassy employee Ali Rajavi in London to
leave the country within three weeks.
	The series of expulsions began in July when British Embassy Third
Secretary Geoffrey Brammer was ordered out of Iran ``on charges of
activities against diplomatic norms.''
	The British spokesman said Rajavi was chosen for expulsion simply
because he was closest in rank to Brammer, and hinted at possible
further retaliation for Saturday's actions by Iran.
	``On the basis of the information that we have so far, this clearly
looks like a blatant and unjustified retaliation,'' the Foreign Office
spokesman said of Saturday's action by Iran. ``We will be protesting
strongly to the Iranians.
	``This is likely to have a serious effect on Anglo-Iranian relations
and we will be considering our position,'' he said.
	Iran and Britain restored diplomatic relations in September 1990
following an 18-month break over the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's
religious decree in February 1989 for Muslims anywhere in the world to
kill British author Salman Rushdie.
	Following Khomeini's death in June 1989, Iran's ruling clerics
refused to lift the religious death order against Rushdie, whose book 
``The Satanic Verses'' was said to be blasphemous to Islam.
	British media reports said the three Iranians ordered deported last
month were suspected of plotting to kill the Indian-born writer.
	Iran denied the charge, but the British expulsions came against a
background of incidents in which several people, including former
Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, were stabbed to death by men
suspected of being Iranian agents.
	``At the time these three in July were deported, we made it quite
clear that intelligence activities in the U.K. were always unacceptable,
'' the British Foreign Office spokesman said. ``As all these various
developments show, the relationship continues to be a difficult one.
	``We would like an improvement in these relations,'' he said, ``but
that depends on Iran.''


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mtaghavi@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu                          Amir Taghavi

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