UK embassy staff 'would face trial'

A senior Iranian cleric warned yesterday that detained British embassy staff would face trial for their alleged role in post-election unrest, and EU countries summoned Iranian envoys to protest against the detentions.

Britain said it was urgently seeking clarification from Iranian authorities over Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati's comments to worshippers during Friday prayers in Tehran.

"In these developments (the unrest) their embassy here maintained a presence," Ayatollah Jannati said. "Individuals were arrested and inevitably they will be tried as they have (made) confessions."

Ayatollah Jannati is a conservative who heads the Guardian Council, a powerful 12-member constitutional watchdog which upheld the official result of the June 12 presidential election - won by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but rejected as a fraud by moderate challenger Mirhossein Mousavi. Ayatollah Jannati reiterated accusations by other senior Iranian figures that the West had plotted a so-called "velvet revolution" to undermine the Islamic Republic's establishment.

"They (the British) had ahead of time ... announced that in the election that is scheduled to take place in Iran there might be unrest and turmoil," Jannati said.

Ayatollah Jannati, who en-dorsed Mr Ahmadinejad before the election, also hit out at the President's reformist opponents: "Isn't their approach an attempt to confront the (Islamic) establishment?"

The post-election unrest has posed a dilemma for Western powers torn between sympathy for protesters and a desire to keep alive chances for dialogue on what they suspect is an Iranian nuclear weapons programme.

Iran denies it is seeking to make bombs, and the incoming head of the UN's nuclear agency said yesterday he did not see any written evidence Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability.

But French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tehran, which has already been handed three rounds of United Nations sanctions over its failure to stop enriching uranium, could face more international measures over the British embassy detentions.

"France has always wanted to strengthen the sanctions so that the Iranian leaders really understand that the path they have chosen will be a dead end," he said in Stockholm.

A European Union official in Brussels said members of the 27-member bloc summoned Iranian ambassadors to protest against the detention of the British embassy's Iranian staff.

He said EU states agreed a gradual approach towards Tehran that could in future include visa bans and withdrawal of ambassadors from Iran, depending on how the situation evolved.

"The first immediate action is to convey a strong message of protest against the detention of British embassy local staff and to demand their immediate release," the official said.