An Iranian man faces criminal charges after trying to enter a naval base in Scotland that houses Britain’s nuclear-armed submarines, the police said on Saturday.
The man, 34, and a Romanian woman, 31, were arrested on Thursday after trying to enter H.M. Naval Base Clyde, Police Scotland said in a statement. They were charged in connection with the incident and will appear in court in Dumbarton, Scotland, on Monday, according to the police, who did not release the people’s names or say what they had been charged with.
A Ministry of Defense official said the man and the woman had walked up to the base’s front gate around 5 p.m. local time on Thursday and asked to be let in. They did not try to break in or climb over security fencing, said the official, who was not authorized to speak for attribution. Naval personnel called the police, who arrested the two a short time later, the official said.
Britain’s nuclear arsenal consists entirely of submarine-launched Trident missiles, which are on four nuclear-powered Vanguard submarines. When not on patrol, as one of them is always supposed to be, the submarines are docked at the Royal Navy base at Clyde.
Britain has been on high alert for security threats involving Iran since the United States and Israel began their war with the country three weeks ago. Amid the first waves of retaliatory strikes by Iran and its allies, a drone struck a British military base in Cyprus.
Soon after the war began, Britain gave the United States permission to use its bases to attack Iranian missile launchers deployed against British bases and allies. On Friday, Britain went further, authorizing American use of its bases to attack Iranian targets that threaten ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran regards the American use of British bases as “participation in aggression” by the United Kingdom, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told his British counterpart, Yvette Cooper, in a phone call on Friday, according to an account of the call posted on Mr. Araghchi’s Telegram channel.
Hours before the incident at the base in Scotland on Thursday, two Iranian men appeared in a London court charged with carrying out “hostile surveillance” of Israeli and Jewish institutions on behalf of Iran’s intelligence service.
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