British foreign minister James Cleverly said on Saturday Britain would temporarily withdraw its ambassador from Iran following the execution of British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari and was considering what further action to take against Tehran.

"It is important to recognize that our response are not necessarily limited to the actions that I've announced today," he told broadcasters.

"I will decide obviously in consultation with my colleagues in government what further actions we may choose to take but I'm not going to speculate about those today."