World Notes DIPLOMACY

The Iranian embassy in Paris was surrounded by police last week, and soon the Iranian government retaliated by cordoning off the French embassy in Tehran in a confrontation that Paris newspapers dubbed the "battle of the embassies." At the center of the controversy was Wadid Gordji, 34, an interpreter at the Iranian embassy. French authorities, who believe he is actually a high-ranking Iranian intelligence official, recently tried to question him about a rash of / terrorist bombings in Paris last fall. At the time, the French assumed the attacks were the work of a Lebanese clan seeking the freedom of a jailed terrorist. Now it appears they suspect the Iranians.

Gordji fled to his embassy, where the Iranian charge d'affaires last week gave an angry press conference -- with Gordji as his interpreter. French officials vowed to take a hard line on the affair. But with six French hostages believed to be held by pro-Iranian factions in Lebanon -- and the 1979-81 U.S. embassy siege in Tehran still in the public mind -- France is, as one official conceded, "at a distinct disadvantage."