Iran latest: US and UK withdraw staff from military base in Qatar after Tehran threatens attack in major escalation – UK Times

The Iranian government has imposed a deadly crackdown on protests in Iran with more than 2,400 protesters killed in the past fortnight.

The protests began late last month when a currency crash led thousands of Iranians to take to the streets, spiralling into the most serious threat to the regime in years.

The economic collapse of the country is evident in the value of its local currency, the rial. Morningstar data shows it was around 42,000 rial to the dollar back in mid-December; fast forward to today and it’s more than 1.1m rial to the dollar, having been as high as 1.4m just days ago, an all time low.

In purchasing power terms of goods from outside the country, money is suddenly worth next to nothing for Iranians. Internally the picture isn’t a whole lot better.

The Independent’s Business and Money Editor Karl Matchett reports:

Kate Devlin, Whitehall Editor reports:

The UK has shut its embassy in Tehran as more European countries urge their citizens to leave Iran.

A government spokesman said: “We have temporarily closed the British Embassy in Tehran, this will now operate remotely. Foreign Office travel advice has now been updated to reflect this consular change.”

German ‌authorities have ‌issued ​a directive ​cautioning ‍the ‍country’s ​airlines ‍from entering Iranian ‍airspace, ⁠Flightradar24 said on Wednesday.

Andrew Feinberg, DC Correspondent, reports:

Donald Trump says Iran has stopped “the killing” and there are “no plans for executions”.

“But we’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping, and it’s stopped. It’s stopping, and there’s no plan for executions, or an execution, or executions. So I’ve been told that a good authority will find out about it. I’m sure if happens, we’ll all be very upset, including you will be very upset.

“But that’s just gotten to me from information that the killing has stopped, that the executions have stopped. They’re not going to have an execution, which a lot of people were talking about for the last couple of days today was going to be the day of execution.”

Italy has ‌strongly renewed an appeal to ‌its ​citizens ​to leave ‍Iran because ‍of ​the security situation ‍in the country, ‍the foreign ⁠ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. There are around 600 Italians in ‌Iran, ​most of them in ⁠the Tehran area, ‍it ‌added.

Polish citizens ‌should leave Iran immediately, the ‌Polish ​foreign ​ministry ‍said on ‍Wednesday. “The ​Ministry ‍of Foreign Affairs ‍urges the ⁠immediate departure from Iran and advises against all travel to ‌this country,” ​it said in a ⁠post on ‍X

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow needed to keep working with Iran to implement their bilateral agreements and that no other country could change the nature of ties between Russia and Iran.

Lavrov was speaking at a news conference in Moscow.

A senior Iranian official told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that Tehran had warned neighbouring countries hosting US troops that it would retaliate against American bases if Washington carries out threats to intervene in protests in Iran.

An Iranian protester is facing execution on Wednesday over his alleged involvement in protests sweeping the nation, rights groups have claimed.