Protesters pelt UK embassy in Iran with stones

Reuters Alert Net:

14 Aug 2005 15:59:31 GMT

TEHRAN, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Around 300 hardline students, chanting "British spies should be expelled", pelted the British embassy in Tehran with tomatoes and stones on Sunday during a demonstration to demand Iran's nuclear rights be respected.

Some windows of the embassy were smashed during the protest. But a cordon of riot police prevented the protesters from forcing their way into the walled compound.

The rally, organised by university student members of the hardline Basij militia, was timed to protest Britain's role, along with France and Germany, in sponsoring a resolution adopted by the board of the U.N.'s atomic watchdog on Thursday.

The resolution called on Iran to immediately reverse its resumption of uranium conversion -- a process that can lead to the production of atomic reactor or bomb-grade fuel.

Iran, which says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, has rejected the resolution and said it will not comply.

"If nuclear technology is a good thing we want to have it," said Mohammad Shafii at the rally. "It it's bad, why do they (the West) have it?"

Earlier on Sunday, Iran's Foreign Ministry accused Britain of stirring up recent ethnic unrest in its southwestern Khuzestan province.

"Some of those who were arrested during the unrest have been trained by the British," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. "We have warned London about the consequences of such interference."

The Khuzestan violence flared in April, when at least five people died and 200 were injured in clashes between members of the province's Arab minority and security forces. Officials said the disturbances were triggered by rumours of plans to relocate Arabs from the province.