U.K.-Iran Agree Interests Units After Embassies Shut, IRNA Says

The U.K., which shut its embassy in Tehran last year after it was raided by militants, has reached an agreement with Iran to open interests sections, Iranian state media reported.

Oman will be in charge of the Iranian interests section in London, while Sweden will represent British interests in Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said yesterday, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

The decision came following Salehi’s talks with U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague during a summit in Afghanistan earlier this month, the state-run Press TV news channel said in a report on its website early today.

The Foreign Office in London wasn’t immediately able to comment on the reports.

The U.K. closed its embassy in Tehran and ordered Iran to remove its diplomats from London after the sites were stormed in November by the pro-government Basij militia, which accused Britain of links to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Iran’s “Foreign Ministry will take measures for Iranians residing in the U.K. to follow on their consular affairs with more ease,” Salehi told reporters in Tehran, according to IRNA.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Dubai at lnasseri@bloomberg.net; Yeganeh Salehi in Dubai at yalehi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net