Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned Britain's ambassador to Tehran today to protest against the knighting of author Salman Rushdie, calling it a provocative act, the official IRNA news agency said.
"This insulting, suspicious and improper act by the British government is an obvious example of fighting against Islam," Ebrahim Rahimpour, Foreign Ministry director for Western Europe, told British Ambassador Geoffrey Adams, IRNA said.
Rushdie's novel The Satanic Versesprompted the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa death warrant against him in 1989.
Rushdie was awarded the knighthood for services to literature in Queen Elizabeth's birthday honours list published on Saturday.