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Iran, France to swap ambassadors after strained ties

Iran France to swap ambassadors after strained ties
Iran, France to swap ambassadors after strained ties

2019-03-06 00:00:00 - Source: Baghdad Post

Iran and France are set to exchange ambassadors, officials

said on Wednesday, after months of tensions including over an alleged Iranian

plot to bomb an opposition rally near Paris, according to AFP.

Bahram Ghasemi, a former envoy to Spain and Italy and

current spokesman of the foreign ministry, has been appointed as Iran's new

ambassador to France, an official source in Tehran told AFP.

In Paris, the Official Gazette on Wednesday said that

Philippe Thiebaud, a former envoy to Pakistan who once represented France at

the UN atomic watchdog, had been appointed as ambassador to Iran.

Ghasemi and Thiebaud will fill posts that had been vacant

for more than six months after a series of diplomatic fallouts between France

and Iran broke out last year.

The previous French ambassador left Iran at the end of his

mandate in August while Tehran's envoy left Paris last summer before finishing

his term. No official reason was given for his abrupt departure.

In June, France accused a branch of Iran's intelligence

ministry of attempting to bomb a meeting of the People's Mujahedin, an Iranian

opposition group, near Paris.

Tehran vehemently denied the accusations and in return slammed

France for hosting the group which it calls a "terrorist cult of

hypocrites".

Relations between France and Iran have also been strained

over demands by Paris that Iran limits its ballistic missiles program – which

Tehran says is purely defensive.

Iran reined in most of its nuclear program under a

landmark 2015 deal with major powers – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia

and the United States – that lifted sanctions on the Iran.

In May the United States withdrew from the deal and re-imposed

sanctions on Tehran.

France and the other European partners to the deal, have

been trying to salvage the nuclear accord and set up a payment mechanism to

maintain trade and business ties with Iran that would circumvent the US

sanctions.

But Tehran has accused them of dragging their feet, it has

also criticized France for selling advanced warplanes and other weapons to its

regional rivals Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

News that Iran and France will exchange ambassadors came a

day after the ultraconservative Iranian newspaper Kayhan called for the

expulsion of French diplomats from the country.

Kayhan claimed that Paris had expelled an Iranian diplomat

last autumn. Neither the Iranian nor the French foreign ministries have denied

or confirmed the expulsion.





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