The Embassy of Iran in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

is the

diplomatic mission A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually denotes ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. It is located in a

terrace Terrace may refer to: Landforms and construction * Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river * Terrace, a street suffix * Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk a ...

overlooking Hyde Park in

South Kensington South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

, London, next to the Embassy of Ethiopia. Iran also maintains a Consular Section at 50 Kensington Court,

. The embassy building, along with the Ethiopian Embassy and the

Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum (), known as Sikorski Institute, named after General Władysław Sikorski, is a leading London-based museum and archive for research into Poland during World War II and the Polish diaspora. It is a non-go ...

, is one of a group of

Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

listed stucco buildings. The embassy was the location of the 1980

Iranian Embassy siege The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Embassy of Iran, London, Iranian embassy on Prince's Gate in South Kensington, London. The gunmen, Iranian Arabs campaigning for th ...

in which members of the Iranian-Arab nationalist group the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan seized the building for several days before being overrun by the SAS. The embassy was severely damaged during the siege and did not re-open until 1993. Following the 2011 attack on the British Embassy in Iran, the British government expelled all Iranian embassy staff and closed the embassy in protest, alleging government support for the attack. Between 2011 and 2014, Iranian interests in the UK were represented by the Omani Embassy. Anglo-Iranian relations have improved since the election of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

Hassan Rouhani Hassan Rouhani (; born Hassan Fereydoun, 12 November 1948) is an Iranian peoples, Iranian politician who served as the seventh president of Iran from 2013 to 2021. He is also a sharia lawyer ("Wakil"), academic, former diplomat and Islamic cl ...

and the countries made plans to re-open the embassy. On February 20, 2014, the Embassy was restored and the two countries agreed to restart

diplomatic relations Diplomacy is the communication by representatives of state, intergovernmental, or non-governmental institutions intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern Diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. ...

. On March 9, 2018, four people from Khoddam Al-Mahdi were arrested after climbing onto the first-floor balcony of the Embassy and taking down the Iranian flag in an apparent protest against the government in Tehran due to the arrest of the Islamic scholar Hussein al-Shirazi in Qom three days earlier. On September 25, 2022, there were angry protests outside the Embassy, mostly by the Iranian diaspora in the United Kingdom, following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody on September 16. Demonstrators waved the pre-1979 Iranian flag and chanted "Death to the Islamic Republic". Five Metropolitan Police officers were injured and twelve arrests were made.

Gallery

File:16 Princes Gate.jpg, The embassy in 2008 File:Zz embassy.jpg, The embassy as it appeared after the hostage crisis, 1980

References

{{Iran–United Kingdom relations

Iran–United Kingdom relations Grade II listed buildings in the City of Westminster South Kensington