Iran-UK Relations: Two Sides of A Coin

At the beginning of last year's general elections in the UK, it seemed that a coalition government of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats would tend to have new relations with Iran. In other words, there was a positive sign for Tehran’s relationship with London. But in practice, and for many different reasons on both sides, this did not happen and relations even worsened compared to previous Labour Party rule. In the selection of England’s foreign policy team, William Hague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his deputy in Middle East affairs, Alistair Barrett, are both reputed to hold membership in Israel's parliamentary lobby in the UK, and this is obviously an important obstacle to improving relations between Tehran and London. The contact of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and his deputy in Middle East affairs with the Israel lobby is not slander or libel: the two politicians are among key members of the small eight-member “Conservative Friends of Israel” in the British parliament.

So, according to the existing animosity between Iran and Israel, the challenges for Tehran and London not only did not decrease, but continued and even worsened. Now the British ministry of foreign affairs bases its ties with Iran on these challenges, and has become the leader- whether of US allies or EU members- of the confrontation with Iran.

A simple review of the homepage of the official website of the British Embassy to Tehran shows that the British officials do not post any items suggesting services or diplomatic relations, or everyday issues that the embassy should be carrying out. For example, currently on the homepage, there some headline stories about the trial of Baha’is, the temporary closure of the embassy, human rights reports, sanctions against the violators of human rights, and Catherine Ashton’s reaction against Iranian judicial decisions: no hopeful, impartial or positive stance vis-a-vis Iran, or anything associated with economic relations or the services of the British Embassy to Iran has been posted.

So it seems that the aggressive and confrontation-seeking policy of the UK is conscious and organized. It is natural that this policy is influenced by domestic policy and Iranian positions, but it cannot be claimed that if Iranian positions change, the approach in the UK toward Iran will be transformed.

Some believe that British policy toward Iran has been the same since the beginning of the revolution, but even if that is really true, it was never so clearly at odds with Iran. I believe that change in the UK’s policy and the effects of the US neoconservative lobby and the Israel lobby in the UK, lies beneath the UK’s apparent position.

The British Embassy in Tehran is putting increasing restrictions on issuing visas for Iranians, and its leadership in the illegal refusal to provide Iranian civilian aircraft with fuel (that later spread to other European countries) bears witness to the false claims of London and Washington on targeted sanctions against the Iranian government and the immunity of the Iranian people from the sanctions. The action of not providing fuel for Iranian aircraft is neither cited in the decisions of the Security Council against Iran, nor in the additional sanctions of the EU.

These actions remind us of London’s extrajudicial sanctions against Iran since 1979, many of which had no legal basis in international law and went far beyond what was previously determined by the UN and the international community. In recent months, this writer published some reports of official documents on such measures taken by London against Iran.

Also, in the video blogs produced by the Persian and Arabic official spokesman of the UK foreign affairs ministry in recent months, he has officially and explicitly adopted positions against the positions and political system of Iran. Without getting into the accuracy of the allegations in the videos, the main problem is that the duty of a diplomatic official must somehow fit within a diplomatic framework to resolve conflicts, not to create new conflicts and challenges.

For example, in the spokesman’s vlog on the Shahnameh exhibition at Cambridge University, he considered the Iranian government as Zahhak and its opponents as Fereydoun. This shows that his stance is beyond the critical aspects of the diplomatic or respectful policy challenges. Of course, it should also be noted that the procedure on the opposite side has been the same, but it seems that in recent years, while the UK claimed restraint with respect to Iran and accused Iran of creating tensions in bilateral relations, the situation now seems reversed.

About three years ago I attended a conference in London with Sir Richard Dalton, the former ambassador of the UK to Tehran. He explicitly said that the country's embassy in Iran was routinely threatened- even in form of threats of physical assault- but he and his colleagues never stopped working in Iran.

But it is clear that today, the closure of the embassy with just one threatening suspect phone call is planned to provoke and intensify the challenges between the two countries.

Iran's Policy towards the UK

This is just one side of the coin. I believe there are some circumstances in Iran which cause conditions to be difficult for Great Britain.

There is a wrong approach in Iran against the UK: there is no way forward but the cutting of all diplomatic relations between Tehran and London. Cutting ties with the UK has been proposed by some Iranian policy makers ever since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution..

In my opinion, this approach is wrong and its damaging effects have been proven in practice: in today's world many countries are working against the interests of other countries, but cutting ties with a country is not the right solution. Tehran’s cutting ties with London might be an understandable reaction, but not a fundamental and strategic solution. Those advocating cutting ties, threatening the embassy, or performing violent acts against Great Britain, in practice help the extremist and anti-Iran factions in the UK, which does not defend Iranian national interests in the long term. In my opinion, despite all the serious problems, challenges and conflicts between Iran and the UK, cutting the political relations between the two countries is an elimination of the question. Cutting Iran’s connection with all countries that have acted against our national interests is not reasonable and practical, and indicates a stalemate in our diplomatic tools and functionality.