LONDON, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- The activities of the BBC and Voice of America, which Tehran accuses of operating as intelligence divisions, are monitored closely, Iranian authorities said.
Tehran blamed the British, U.S., and most recently, the German governments for backing opposition movements in Iran with the aim of toppling the clerical regime.
The Iranian government complained recently that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office spent more than $23 million on the BBC's Persian broadcaster in 2009.
Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, Iran's police chief, said the BBC and VOA are acting as spy agencies inside his country, The Times of London reports.
"The BBC is the arm of MI6 and VOA belongs to the CIA," he said. "Those who cooperate with foreign services through transmitting photos, reports, news and anti-revolutionary actions … should know that all their actions are monitored. We will settle accounts with them when the time comes."
Iran cracked down on press freedoms in the wake of contested June presidential elections that sparked unrest in the country not seen since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Domestic news agencies critical of the principles of the revolution are closed routinely and most foreign journalists were kicked out of the country after the June unrest.
