Iran has recalled its ambassador Seyyed Jafar Hashemi from Prague in protest at the Czech government's allowing the United States to start radio broadcasts to Iran from its territory.

The American-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which relocated from western Germany to Prague in 1995, began Persian-language broadcasts last week, as well as Arabic transmissions to Iraq.An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Iran would scale down its economic and political links with the Czech Republic to show its disapproval of what it said was interference in its domestic affairs.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was set up by the US Central Intelligence Agency in 1951 to transmit uncensored news and comment to the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies during the Cold War.