The Iranian diplomat trying to stop Armageddon

‘The embassy is being invaded. The ambassador has had to lock himself in his office upstairs, and there are people on our balcony. Your government is responsible for the safety of our diplomats and embassy. We will hold you accountable…’ The voice at the other end of the line was calm, though there was no mistaking the underlying aggression. ‘The Vienna Convention is very clear about the responsibility of host countries for diplomatic missions.’

I received that call in the autumn of 2017, when I was coming to the end of my second year as Britain’s ambassador to Iran. A large group of demonstrators had been campaigning loudly outside the Iranian embassy in London for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who had been illegally detained since April 2016 in Evin Prison in northern Tehran. The protestors had breached the embassy gates, and a few had managed to get onto the balcony outside the ambassador’s office – the same balcony that black-clad, balaclavaed SAS soldiers abseiled onto when they recaptured the embassy from Khuzestan terrorists in May 1980.