Australia gave Iran’s ambassador seven days notice to leave the country on Tuesday, accusing the diplomatic envoy of directing two antisemitic arson attacks in the state capitals of Sydney and Melbourne.
It is the first such expulsion issued by Canberra since World War Two.
AFP reports intelligence services reached the “deeply disturbing conclusion” that Iran directed at least two antisemitic attacks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrives at Calgary International Airport Sunday, June 15, 2025 in Calgary, Canada, ahead of the G7 Summit. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Tehran was behind the torching of a kosher cafe in Sydney’s beachside Bondi suburb in October 2024, Albanese told a news conference.
It also directed a major arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December 2024, he said, citing the intelligence findings, the AFP report sets out.
Children from the local Jewish community look at the tributes left outside the torched Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 10, 2024. (WILLIAM WEST/AFP via Getty Images)
Iranian ambassador to Australia Ahmad Sadeghi was told just 30 minutes before the press conference that he – and three other officials – were being expelled from the country.
“These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Albanese said.
“They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community.”
A protester holds high a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the front of a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge during a pro-Palestinian rally/anti-Israel protest in Sydney on August 3, 2025. (SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Australia declared Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi “persona non grata” and ordered him and three other officials to leave the country within seven days.
The government also advised all Australians to leave Iran if they can do so safely.
The move comes just weeks after Australia declared it will recognise a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly next month, dismissing Israel’s call that such a move “rewards terrorism,” as Breitbart News reported.
Albanese said he had received firm commitments from the Palestinian Authority (PA) including to demilitarise, hold general elections and continue to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
“A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” he said.
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