Sweden expels an Iranian embassy staff member and summons Iran’s ambassador

🔸The Swedish government announced on Wednesday, 25 Shahrivar, that it has expelled an employee of the Islamic Republic’s embassy in the capital of this country.

🔸The Swedish Ministry of Justice also reported that it had summoned the ambassador of the Islamic Republic in connection with this matter.

🔸According to Sweden’s foreign minister, the Iranian embassy employee—whose identity was not specified—will be expelled for carrying out actions that are “incompatible with the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.”

🔸On Wednesday, the French news agency reported, citing a statement from the Swedish Ministry of Justice, that the reason for these new actions was “Tehran’s threats” against the interests of Jews and Israel in Sweden.

🔸Gunnar Strömmer, the Minister of Justice, says in the statement: “We are aware that Iran, over an extended period of time, has engaged in activities that constitute a threat to Sweden’s security and has targeted opponents of the Iranian regime and the interests of Jews.”

🔸The statement also emphasizes that the Islamic Republic has used networks of local criminals for such actions.

🔸The use of local networks by Iran is an issue that the Swedish government has pointed to several times over the past two years, and it has even led to tensions in relations between the two countries.

🔸For example, following the publication of a report by Sweden’s Security and Intelligence Service regarding the Islamic Republic’s use of Swedish criminal gangs to carry out “violent acts” in Khordad 1403, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the chargé d’affaires of the Swedish embassy in Tehran.

🔸In response to the summoning of the chargé d’affaires of the Swedish embassy in Khordad 1403, an assistant to the Director-General for Western Europe at the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Foreign Ministry had described the Swedish security official’s remarks as “baseless and malicious allegations.”

🔸At the time, Daniel Stenling, head of the counter-espionage unit of Sweden’s internal security agency, had said that the Security and Intelligence Service had evidence showing that the Islamic Republic of Iran uses Swedish criminal gangs to carry out “violent acts” against Israel and other countries and groups in Sweden that Tehran considers a threat.

🔸Sweden has for years been grappling with violence by criminal groups, and criminal gangs often recruit teenagers in migrant neighborhoods that are socially disadvantaged to carry out criminal activities.