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PORTUGAL-IRAN-VISAS-SECURITY
Suspension of visas to Iranians not ‘political’: Portugal
LISBON, July 17, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Portugal denied Wednesday it was
refusing visas to Iranians for “political” reasons, and insisted the measure
was “temporary”.
The move came against a background of mounting tension between Iran and
the West after Tehran breached a limit for uranium enrichment set in a 2015
nuclear deal.
“This decision is not political,” a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP
Wednesday.
“It is not related to security conditions in Iran or any other aspect of
an institutional or political nature,” the ministry added in a statement.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva announced a decision to
suspend the issuing of visas to Iranians for “security reasons”, telling
parliament: “Portugal does not joke around with entries into its national
territory.”
The minister said he would not elaborate on the reasoning in public,
though he later told local media the suspension had “nothing to do with the
quality of bilateral relations between Portugal and Tehran.”
Iran and the United States have been engaged in a war of words since
Tehran in recent weeks enriched uranium past the limit set by a landmark 2015
nuclear in response to Washington pulling out last year.
There has also been tension on the high seas, after the British Royal
Marines helped Gibraltar authorities detain an Iranian tanker that US
officials believe was trying to deliver oil to Syria in violation of
sanctions.
In response, Tehran has issued a series of increasingly ominous warnings
to both the US and Britain about its right to take unspecified actions in
reprisal.
And France has expressed concern about the fate of a French-Iranian
academic arrested in Iran, the latest in a long list of dual nationals held
in the country’s prisons.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1905HRS