Iran briefly closed its airspace to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plane as she flew to India for a visit yesterday, delaying her arrival and sparking a diplomatic row.

Mrs Merkel was held up as she flew overnight on Monday-Tuesday for a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pratibha Patil in New Delhi.

“Hindering the German chancellor’s passage over Iran is absolutely unacceptable. It shows a lack of respect towards Germany that we will not accept,” Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a statement.

He summoned the Iranian ambassador in Berlin to “make it very plain that such a breach of international conventions will in no way be tolerated by Germany”.

The reasons for the delay were not immediately known and a second plane with four of Mrs Merkel’s ministers and other delegation members was not held up.

Mrs Merkel, speaking at a news conference with Mr Singh, declined to go into detail about the inconvenience, which saw her plane circle for two hours over Turkey before receiving permission to cross Iran.

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