Latest news with #MathiasOtterstedt
Local Sweden
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
Iran summons Swedish ambassador over minister's 'rogue state' comments
An Iranian ministry statement said it had made a formal protest to criticise "inappropriate statements and unfounded and interventionist accusations of the Swedish minister of education against the Islamic Republic of Iran". The ministry said it told Ambassador Mathias Otterstedt that the remarks were "contrary to the standards of international law and diplomatic norms". The spat comes after Swedish Education Minister Johan Pehrson compared Iran to a "rogue state" in an interview with Swedish daily Expressen published in late February. "Iran is a rogue state from which many Swedes have fled. They have institutionalised misogyny, anti-Semitism and sponsor terrorism," Pehrson was quoted as saying. Also on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei called the Swedish minister's reported remarks "unacceptable and devoid of truth and reality". The diplomatic summons comes after the Swedish government on Friday asked Tehran to free Ahmadreza Jalali, an Iranian-Swedish academic sentenced to death in 2017 after being charged with espionage. Sweden called for Jalali's "immediate release on humanitarian grounds so that he can be reunited with his family" and called for his "immediate access to the medical care he so clearly needs". Jalali, who was granted Swedish nationality while in jail, in mid-January accused Stockholm of not taking sufficient action to obtain his release. On June 15th last year, Tehran freed two Swedes, Johan Floderus, an EU diplomat who had been held since April 2022, and Saeed Azizi, who was arrested in November 2023, in exchange for Hamid Noury, an Iranian former official serving a life sentence in Sweden. Iran's judiciary does not recognise dual nationality, so did not refer to the release of the two Swedes as a prisoner swap.
National News
10-03-2025
- Politics
- National News
Iran summons Swedish ambassador after minister calls Iran a ‘rogue state'
NNA - Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned Sweden's ambassador in Tehran to protest comments by Sweden's education minister, who criticized Iran following a Swedish media report alleging that an Iranian student at Lund University had ties to Iran's intelligence services. "The Swedish Ambassador in Tehran, Mathias Otterstedt, was summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry by the Director of the Western Europe's Third Department Shahram Ghazizadeh in response to the inappropriate and interventionist positions of some Swedish officials against the Islamic Republic of Iran," a statement by the foreign ministry released on Monday read. During the meeting with the Swedish ambassador, Iran communicated its "formal protest to the Swedish envoy and criticized the inappropriate statements, baseless accusations, and interventionist remarks made by the Swedish minister of education against the Islamic Republic of Iran." An investigative report by Swedish daily newspaper Expressen last month revealed that an individual who had worked for Iran's intelligence service for two years was subsequently employed as a doctoral student at Lund University. The student had not mentioned his background in Iran's intelligence service in his CV. The report quoted the student as confirming he "worked for an institute that later turned out to be part of the intelligence service." Reacting to the repot the Swedish Minister of Education Johan Pehrson said: "Iran is a rogue state that many Swedes have fled from. They have institutionalized misogyny, anti-Semitism and sponsor terrorism. The Swedish Security Service classifies Iran as one of the greatest security threats to Sweden. Iran not only engages in espionage and influence work, but is also interested in acquiring technology and innovations that are developed in Swedish companies and universities." Iran's foreign ministry also said that during the meeting, Ghazizadeh also criticized Sweden for summoning Iran's ambassador in Stockholm over the case of detained Swedish Iranian Ahmadreza Djalili on death row in Tehran.--agencies
