Iran's arrest of eight British embassy staff in Tehran is "harassment" and "intimidation", Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Sunday.
"The United Kingdom is deeply concerned at the arrest and in some cases continued detention of some of our hard-working staff locally engaged in Tehran," Miliband said on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe on the Greek island of Corfu.
"This is harassment and intimidation of a kind which is quite unacceptable. These are hard-working diplomatic staff," he said, adding that the government has protested "in strong terms" to the Iranian authorities.
He said that the release of the embassy staff was Britain's "top priority."
"We want to see (them) released unharmed and back to work," Miliband said.
The Fars news agency earlier reported the arrest of eight members of the local staff at the British embassy who were accused of having a "considerable role" in the riots over Iran's disputed presidential election.
When the Iranians are thinking of our embassies, it is bad. I hope the British are taking precautions. The Iranians might take their Gulf routine to land.
At least today's Iranian students are friendly toward us--well, until the survivors of this election crisis start thinking about how much we helped them in their hour of need.
