Swedish chargés d’affaires summoned to Iran foreign ministry

The Swedish diplomat was summoned by the Foreign Ministry’s assistant director-general for Western Europe on Saturday, and was notified of Tehran’s protest at the remarks that had been made “based on wrong information”, the ministry said in a statement.

“Propagation of [such] baseless claims points to some parties’ intention to afflict damage on the countries’ time-honored relations,” the Iranian official told the diplomat.

“Accordingly, the Swedish authorities are expected to be vigilant about suspicious developments more than before.”

For his part, the Swedish official said he would immediately notify relevant authorities about Tehran’s protest.

The developments came a day after some Western news agencies said Daniel Stenling, head of counter-espionage for the Swedish intelligence, had alleged that Iran was “recruiting members of Swedish gangs to target the Israeli regime’s interests” in the European country.

Last year, the Foreign Ministry had similarly summoned Sweden’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran in protest at desecration of the Holy Qur’an in the European country, a development that had taken place amid the approval of Swedish authorities and in the name of “freedom of speech”.