Sweden to represent UK in Iran

Britain's Foreign Office said Thursday it has signed an agreement with Sweden allowing it to represent British interests in Iran. Oman will perform the same role for Iran in London, it said.            
Britain and Iran shut down their diplomatic missions last year around Britain's prominent participation in efforts by the West to pressure Iran over its nuclear program. Britain shut Iran's embassy in London and expelled all its staff in November, after Iranian hard-liners stormed Britain's embassy in Tehran in a violent attack. The British maintain that the attack was backed by Iranian state militia.          

The Foreign Office said Thursday it would like to restore its embassy services in Tehran in the future but before that happens, the arrangements will help the British "continue essential business on a formal basis."            

Under the agreement, Sweden will safeguard Britain's administrative and consular interests in Iran, as well as provide limited consular assistance to Britons there.          

Britain's embassy in Tehran has been closed down many times since early 1950s. The two countries have had a history of bitter relations over the past decades on various issues, including the nationalization of Iran's oil industry in the 1950s, the 1979 Islamic revolution and the 1989 fatwa religious ruling issued by late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordering Muslims to kill British writer Salman Rushdie over his novel "The Satanic Verses."          

Sweden served as a protecting power for the U.K. in Iran in the 1980s.  

AP