Portugal denies it’s refusing visas to Iranians for “political” reasons, insisting the measure was “temporary.”
The move came against a background of mounting tension between Iran and the West after Tehran breached a limit for uranium enrichment set in a 2015 nuclear deal.
“This decision is not political,” a foreign ministry spokesman tells AFP.
“It is not related to security conditions in Iran or any other aspect of an institutional or political nature,” the ministry adds in a statement.
Yesterday, Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva announced a decision to suspend the issuing of visas to Iranians for “security reasons,” telling parliament that “Portugal does not joke around with entries into its national territory.”
The minister said he would not elaborate on the reasoning in public, though he later told local media the suspension had “nothing to do with the quality of bilateral relations between Portugal and Tehran.”
Iran and the United States have been engaged in a war of words since Tehran in recent weeks enriched uranium past the limit set by a landmark 2015 nuclear in response to Washington pulling out last year.
— AFP
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