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TEHRAN: Iran is expelling a German diplomat, the foreign ministry said on Sunday, after Germany reportedly expelled an Iranian diplomat for seeking to obtain nuclear material.
Foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the diplomat was being expelled for activities incompatible with his or her status, but did not reveal the German's identity.
"The relevant (Iranian) authorities recognise that undiplomatic work was being done and this diplomat should leave the Islamic republic immediately," he told reporters.
Hosseini did not say if the diplomat had already left Iran and did not give further details on the reason for the expulsion.
The weekly Der Spiegel reported last month that Germany expelled an Iranian diplomat posted to Berlin whom it suspected of trying to obtain material used in uranium enrichment.
Germany, alongside the five permanent UN Security Council members, has been leading efforts to persuade Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make a nuclear bomb.
Relations between Tehran and Berlin have been prickly on occasion in recent decades.
Relations plunged to their worst low in 1997 when Germany jailed an alleged Iranian secret agent for murdering four Kurdish dissidents in Berlin.
Kazem Darabi, 48, and his Lebanese accomplice Abbas Rhayel, were found guilty of the 1992 murder of four Kurdish dissidents in a Greek restaurant in Berlin called "Mykonos".
German judges found that the restaurant killings had been carried out on the orders of Iranian leaders. Darabi arrived back in Tehran last month following his deportation from Germany after a total of 15 years in jail.
- AFP/so
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