What happens when ambassadors are summoned by the host country?

Summary

The BBC recounts by means of interviews the experience of a few ambassadors in these matters. "I was called by the foreign ministry and was told 'We need to see you immediately,'" Mr Casson [former UK ambassador to Egypt] tells the BBC. "The first thing they said was, 'We are not summoning you, but we are going to tell the press we are summoning you. If it had been a summoning, we would have sent a formal diplomatic note summoning you.'" This is the way things normally work in a summoning - a formal, polite, diplomatic note is sent to the relevant country's embassy asking - but not really demanding - its representative to attend a meeting at the foreign ministry, or its equivalent. The medium of the summoning is the message, Mr Casson says. "The main thing is that it is a piece of diplomatic theatre and everybody understands their role, and acts their role," Mr Casson, who was in Cairo between 2014 and 2018, says. In London, the drama can involve being made to wait in the grand surroundings of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to understand the seriousness of the occasion. [...] Mr Fujisaki, a former Japanese ambassador to the United Nations, also served as its representative in Washington between 2008 and 2012. In December 2009, he was summoned by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This was notable for two reasons: this is not something the US state department does often, and Japan is a close ally of the US, so an unlikely subject of a summoning. The Washington Post reports Mrs Clinton was "blunt, if diplomatic" with Mr Fujisaki. [...] Although Mr Fujisaki was widely reported to have been summoned, he disputes the use of the word - and says no-one in the diplomatic service uses it. "A summoning sounds like you are obligated to be there, it's more legal," he says. "In this case, the government is asking you to be there, it's a request." Mr Fujisaki says the ambassador must speak to his home government so that they do not learn of the summoning through the med...