Video footage released by the IRGC claimed to show the deputy ambassador near a site where the IRGC was conducting missile exercises at the time. The deputy ambassador has since apologized and been expelled, according to the reports.
One of the suspects detained by the IRGC had entered the country as part of a scientific exchange with a university. The report claimed that one of the suspects was from the Nicolaus Copernicus University, adding that the university is "associated with the Zionist regime." The IRGC claimed that the suspect sampled soil in some areas.
The IRGC claimed that diplomats are often used to look for military sites and identify equipment and munitions. The report also claimed that the diplomats were being used in order to build a new case concerning the "military aspects of Iran's file in the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."
The claims come as talks between Iran
...The nation is noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence...
and the world powers to attempt to return to the JCPOA nuclear deal remain stalled.
The US has complained that Iran has brought new demands unrelated to the JCPOA deal to the table, while Iranian officials have complained that the US is not willing to lift sanctions before a return to the deal.
US special envoy for Iran Robert Malley called recent indirect talks in Doha a "wasted occasion," saying that Iran "needs to provide an answer" on the issue, in an interview with NPR on Tuesday.
Malley stated that Iran is "much closer" to having enough fissile material for a bomb, but had not resumed it weaponization program. The special envoy added that it would take Iran "a matter of weeks" to make a nuclear weapon. "It would be something that we would know, we would see and to which we would react quite forcefully, as you could imagine."
| The Times of Israel adds: |
It was not immediately clear if the diplomat and other foreigners were currently or previously detained. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that the foreigners had been arrested, but did not say when or whether they were currently in jug.
The news outlets said the deputy head of mission at the British Embassy, Giles Whitaker, and other foreigners faced "spying" charges after visiting various forbidden areas in the country while the Guard was carrying out ballistic missile tests. The semi-official Fars news agency, believed to be close to the Guard, claimed that Whitaker was expelled from the country after apologizing.
Britannia’s Foreign Ministry described the reports that a diplomat was expelled as "completely false."