IRAN remained defiant yesterday towards a European campaign against its alleged links to terrorism, as Tehran protesters clashed with riot police after trying to storm the German embassy.
Some 250 chanting Islamist students marched on the German mission to protest at a German court ruling implicating Iran's leaders in the 1992 murder of four Iranian dissidents in Berlin.
Tens of thousands of people converged on the embassy on Sunday for a rally supported by the government.
The Iranian government has attacked the EU for recalling its ambassadors in solidarity with Germany, but appears convinced the move is largely symbolic.
Europe, notably Germany, has resisted US calls to isolate Iran, having opted instead for "critical dialogue" to try to moderate Tehran's policies.
The moderate Iranian daily Akbar echoed a statement on Sunday by the Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Akbar Velayati, who said the EU's diplomatic measures against Iran were "symbolic and temporary.
However, the Paris based Iranian opposition in exile urged the EU to take a tough line against the "terror regime . . . It is necessary to cut off all diplomatic and trade relations with the present regime." Iran's ambassador to Ireland is among the diplomats Tehran has recalled. The Irish Ambassador to Iran, Mr Anthony Mannix, returned to Dublin at the weekend.
Michael Jansen adds:
The breach in relations between the EU and Iran could strengthen the position of extremist clerics within the regime ahead of the May presidential poll by giving them a stick with which to beat President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has promoted accommodation with the West during his two terms.
His rivals have lost no time in whipping up popular anger over the German court's decision and against the EU Greece excepted - for withdrawing its ambassadors. The radicals would like to exploit this anger to win votes for their candidate.
Since Mr Rafsanjani cannot stand for a third term, the contest is essentially between the radicals choice, the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Ali Akbar Nateq Noori, and the centre left candidate backed by the moderates, Mr Muhammad Khatami.
A victory for Mr Nateq Noori, the most likely to succeed, would mean that temporal and spiritual power in the Islamic Republic would be exercised solely by the anti western clerical faction, instead of by two competing factions, as has been the case since the 1979 Iranian revolution.