RFERL:

The Iranian Foreign Ministry says it has summoned the Swedish ambassador to protest over the country's granting of citizenship to a Stockholm-based scientist who is being held in Tehran and faces a death sentence.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency quoted ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying that the Swedish envoy in Tehran had been summoned in protest on February 19, two days after Sweden confirmed it had granted citizenship to Ahmadreza Djalali.

A Swedish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on February 17 that Stockholm has requested that Iran allow "consular access to our citizen."

"Our demand is that the death penalty is not carried out," she also said.

Qasemi said Iran considered Sweden's move "questionable and unfriendly," and added that Tehran "could not accept the foreign nationality" of the detainee.

"He is still an Iranian," he added.

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