{"id":3340,"date":"2026-04-13T12:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T12:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/3340\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T12:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T12:13:12","slug":"spain-reopens-embassy-in-tehran-with-commitment-to-support-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/3340\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain reopens embassy in Tehran ‘with commitment to support peace’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Spanish embassy<\/a> in Tehran has reopened with a commitment to \u201csupport peace\u201d in the region, prompting sharp criticism from Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe return to Tehran,\u201d the embassy wrote on X. \u201cAmbassador Antonio Sanchez-Benedito Gaspar, together with the diplomatic team and local staff, resumes his work with the commitment to support peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of European embassies<\/a>, including Spain, had relocated their offices outside of Tehran last month after the US and Israel launched a joint air offensive against Iran. The Dutch embassy was temporarily moved to Baku, Azerbaijan. Bulgaria’s embassy also evacuated to Baku in June last year, during the 12-day war.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a large number of EU countries have maintained diplomatic representation in Iran, though sometimes with reduced services. Ambassadors from France<\/a>, Poland, Cyprus and Finland are in Tehran.<\/p>\n

However Spain’s decision to re-open its embassy in Iran, first announced last week, drew sharp criticism from Israel as tensions between the two countries increase. Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar<\/a> described it as an \u201ceternal disgrace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez<\/a> has been the most vocal European critic of US and Israeli actions in the region and the first to describe them as illegal under international law. <\/p>\n

He has also urged the EU to reconsider the possibility of suspending the EU-Israel association agreement, following Israel’s recent surge in attacks against Lebanon. <\/p>\n

In 2024, Mr Sanchez failed to garner wide-ranging support for such a measure, which he had called for because of Israel’s violations of its human rights obligations in Gaza. Israel and its European allies reject the term genocide.<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> has responded by accusing Mr Sanchez of leading a diplomatic war against his country. Last week, he withdrew Spain from the civil military co-ordination centre located in Israel, near Gaza, that is supposed to oversee the implementation of the US-brokered ceasefire in the enclave. A number of European observers are embedded within the centre.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Spain formally withdrew its ambassador to Israel, six months after she was recalled for consultations following a row over a Spanish ban on military exports to Israel due to the Gaza war. <\/p>\n

Israel had previously withdrawn its own ambassador to Spain in protest after Madrid recognised Palestinian statehood alongside France, the UK and a number of other European states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spanish embassy in Tehran has reopened with a commitment to \u201csupport peace\u201d in the region, prompting sharp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,2402,2401,2403],"class_list":{"0":"post-3340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-spain","9":"tag-standard","10":"tag-story","11":"tag-uk-bureau"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}