AFP, Stockholm, July 3, 2009 – The EU must show ’a united front’ towards Iran over the detention of British embassy employees in Tehran, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Friday.
Reinfeldt, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, said it was ’important’ that the 27-member bloc act together with Britain.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed France’s ’total solidarity’ with ’our British friends’ over the affair.
’It’s up to the British to tell us what they need,’ the French president added.
Their comments came during a joint press conference in Stockholm, where President Sarkozy was on an official visit.
Downing Street says seven of the nine local staff originally detained have now been released.
Iran’s Guardians Council, an influential group of Islamic clerics and lawyers, said Friday that some of the embassy staff would be put on trial.
The nine local employees from the British embassy were arrested by Iranian authorities on June 28.
Iranian authorities allege the British embassy sent its staff into the midst of the OPPOSITION demonstrations to stir up trouble after Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad was re-elected — a charge denied by Britain.
In Brussels, the EU said its 27 members were to summon Iranian ambassadors from across Europe in protest over the two employees’ continued detention.