Iran fires several ambassadors...

Afterall, you can't be soft when representing Iran...

Five Iranian ambassadors have been sacked as the country's hardliners tighten their grip on foreign policy following the election of the conservative president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran's ambassador to Britain, Seyed Mohammad Hossein Adeli, is among the casualties of the purge. A press spokesman for the Iranian embassy said: "The ambassador's term has been terminated after one year of serving in London."

Mr Adeli, an experienced hand who is close to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the unsuccessful candidate in the Iranian presidential election, is returning to Tehran. The other envoys recalled to Tehran are the ambassadors to Paris, Geneva, Berlin and Kuala Lumpur.

Western diplomats and analysts in Tehran said the decision had been brewing for some time, even though it was announced days after the new Iranian president sent shock waves across the world by declaring that Israel should be "wiped off the map". The sacking of the five envoys "is of a piece with the more strident hardline foreign policy", said a Western diplomat.