Iranian embassy staff bank accounts closed

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

Iran’s Ambassador to Russia Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi accused a state-run Russian bank of bowing to US pressure to close Iranian embassy staff accounts. REUTERS photo

The Iranian ambassador to Moscow on Mar. 2 accused a state-run Russian bank of closing Iranian embassy staff accounts to please the United States.

Iran’s ambassador to Moscow, Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi, wrote on his blog that the VTB 24 bank had issued orders to embassy staff on Mar. 1 to clear out their accounts on orders from the bank’s “top management.”

“VTB 24 threw itself on the mercy of the US,” he titled the blog post.

“The bank’s personnel must take all their money out of their accounts by 18:00 on Mar. 1 or their accounts will be closed and the money confiscated!” the Iranian diplomat wrote, adding that his own credit card had been blocked.

“Such behavior by the bank is rude, unprofessional and only characteristic of third world countries -- even British and French banks were not ready to deal with diplomatic personnel from our embassies in this way,” he wrote. The bank, however, said it had only shut down an embassy salary payroll service because of inefficiency.