Tehran, Iran, August 22
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
A couple of Western diplomats who had been stopped by security forces in Western Iran last week are not reported to have been carrying out any suspicious activity while there, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi has said.
Qassemi said the diplomats had cameras, but were not doing anything illegal, Trend's correspondent reported August 22.
The announcement comes against the backdrop of media reports quoting a security official from the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in the western province of Kurdistan, that a suspicious car with a diplomatic license plate driving through Saqqez County in Kurdistan Province on August 13 was closely monitored by the security forces and finally stopped in the vicinity of Irankhah village.
Men in the car were identified as two notable French and English diplomats, who allegedly had been filming military sites in the area, and fled the location once receiving an order to stop filming.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that the two passengers were Sebastien Surun, French political attache, and Charlotte Lopez, second secretary of the British Embassy in Tehran,” he said.
“After the car was stopped, their camera was seized by the security forces,” he added.
However, Qassemi said that the previous reports have all been personal speculations, adding that there has been no official report to the Foreign Ministry to indicate any charge of suspicious operations by the mentioned officials.