Iranians Attack Soviet Embassy in Tehran : Protest Moscow’s Reported Supplying of Missiles to Baghdad

Rioting Iranians, apparently outraged over reports that Moscow is supplying the missiles being used by Iraq to bombard the Iranian capital, attacked the Soviet Embassy in Tehran on Sunday, the official Soviet news agency Tass reported.

Tass said the lives of embassy staff members and their families were threatened by the demonstrators, who attacked the embassy with “incendiaries” and stones.

A similar incident, Tass said, was reported at the Soviet consulate in the Iranian city of Esfahan.

IRNA, the official Iranian news agency, said in a report monitored in Cyprus that the demonstrators numbered in the thousands. Several students climbed the embassy fence but were removed by police, IRNA said.

Crowds March on Building

Crowds of students marched to the former U.S. Embassy building and read a statement declaring that the Soviet Union “stained its hand with the blood of Iranian martyrs.”

The statement said that while the United States remains Iran’s “number one enemy, the Soviet Union is standing beside Washington in a treacherous and foolish manner.”

In Moscow, the Iranian charge d’affaires, Majid Ghahremani, was summoned to the Soviet Foreign Ministry, where, Tass said, officials demanded that Iranian authorities “should undertake most urgent and immediate measures to protect the embassy and other Soviet offices in Iran and to stop violence and disorder.”

The Tass dispatch said Soviet officials denied allegations that their country was involved in the Iraqi missile attacks on the Iranian capital.

‘Warned in Advance’

“We think what happened near the walls of the Soviet Embassy is inadmissible,” a Foreign Ministry statement said, “the more so (because) the Iranian side had been warned in advance about our apprehensions and had enough time to prevent the unlawful actions which took place.”

The Soviets have been trying to improve relations with Tehran, which have been strained since the early days of the Iranian revolution and sharply worsened in 1983, when the Iranians outlawed the old Tudeh (Communist) Party of Iran.

The recent improvement in relations has been marked by an exchange of visits by officials of both countries. Economic cooperation ventures have been under discussion.

Formal Protest Lodged

Last Tuesday, however, Iran accused the Soviet Union of supplying Iraq with surface-to-surface missiles now being used in the so-called war of the cities. Tehran lodged a formal protest with the Soviet ambassador in Tehran, and chanting Iranian demonstrators marched on the Soviet Embassy on Friday and then again Sunday.

The Tass report blamed the demonstrations in Tehran and Esfahan on “forces who were opposed to the current improvement in Soviet-Iranian relations and wanted to bring to naught everything that had lately been achieved.”

The Soviets have denied selling surface-to-surface missiles to either Iran or Iraq. Military experts say the missiles used by Iraq are a modified model of the Soviet-made Scud-B. Iraq has claimed that it manufactures the missiles itself.