TEHRAN — Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said Tehran and London have not talked nor taken measures with regard to paying compensation to the UK for an attack on its embassy in Tehran a few years ago.

International law has regulations in this respect and Iran has announced that guarding foreign embassies is among its responsibility, Zarif said on Tuesday, according to Mehr.

The two sides should negotiate over the details of the issue but not negotiation has taken place so far, he added.

In protest over sanctions during the Ahmadinejad administration, a number of protesters attacked British embassy in 2011.

Then Police Chief Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam announced afterwards that twelve people were arrested in connection with the storming of the British embassy and were handed over to the Judiciary.

In 2015, weeks after Iran and six world powers – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany – clinched a nuclear deal, the British embassy in Iran was reopened.

A member of the parliament recently disclosed that 270 billion rials was paid to the UK as compensation for the damage incurred in the attack.

According to Ahmad Mazani, the compensation which amounted to 1.3 million pounds was paid for the restoration of several pieces of art that had been destroyed during the attack on the embassy.

The Tehran-London relations failed to prosper in the aftermath of the U.S. abandonment of the nuclear deal, about which the three European parties to the deal, including the UK, remained passive in practice.

The relations further turned sour earlier this year, when British Ambassador Rob Macaire was arrested briefly by the Iranian police for attending an unauthorized demonstration in central Tehran on January 11.

“Following the British ambassador’s presence in an illegal gathering, he received a serious warning to avoid repeating such behavior,” Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at the time.

“We summoned the ambassador. We reprimanded him severely and after that the Foreign Ministry issued a statement in last line of which we warned of tougher action than summoning in case such behavior is repeated,” Araghchi added.

MH/PA