Netherlands Summons Ambassador to Tehran

The country’s Foreign Minister Stef Blok wrote in a statement Monday that on February 20 in response to the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats from the Netherlands, Iran declared two Dutch diplomats as persona non grata and ordered them to leave Tehran.

In response to this move, the Netherlands first summoned the Iranian ambassador, describing the act as “unacceptable” and “having negative consequences” for bilateral relations.

However, the two Dutch diplomats left Tehran on Sunday. In response to this move, the Netherlands has decided to summon its ambassador to Tehran.

On January 8, 2019, the Netherlands’ foreign and interior ministers wrote a letter to the parliament accusing Iran of murdering Mohammad Reza Samadi Kolahi.

The Dutch foreign ministry had earlier in June expelled the two Iranian diplomats.

Kolahi was the agent behind the blast at the central building of the Islamic Republic of Iran Party on June 28, 1981. In that explosion, more than 70 senior officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran were killed.

Dutch court records show that Kolahi was killed by members of a criminal gang in 2015.

Claims of Iran’s involvement in the incident come as the Dutch prosecutor explicitly stated in the course of the trial that there was no evidence of Iran’s complicity in the murder.