Senior MP criticises UK’s anti-Iran statement

A prominent Iranian lawmaker criticized the British government for releasing an anti-Iran statement concurrent with the visit of the UK parliamentary delegation to Tehran. After a meeting between UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in London on Tuesday, the British Foreign Office issued a statement quoting Hague and Lieberman as saying, "We agreed that the sanctions regime should remain robust until Iran agrees to a comprehensive and final settlement addressing all international concerns about its nuclear program." Speaking to the parliament’s website on Wednesday, member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Esmayeeli pointed to the UK Foreign Office statement, and said, “The British government has shown to this day that all its decisions have been against the Islamic Republic, and the visit of the British parliamentary delegation to Iran cannot change anything.” He reiterated the performance of the British government will be the yardstick of the Iranian government when evaluating ties with London, and said the Iranian nation has always been pessimistic about the UK government’s performance and this pessimism is still continuing. “We have unfortunately not seen any positive step by the British government for moderate its hostile policies (towards Iran),” the senior Iranian lawmaker said. Esmayeeli further slammed Straw himself, saying, “When Mr. Straw was himself the UK foreign secretary, he had a radical stance towards Iran” and now that he does not have an executive post, he has become milder personality. The four-member British delegation, headed by former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, arrived in the Iranian capital on a three-day visit on Tuesday. Relations between Iran and Britain hit an all-time low in November 2011, when the two countries shut down their diplomatic missions around Britain's key role in the imposition of a new set of western sanctions against Iran and its repeated meddling with Iran's domestic affairs. Iran recalled all its staff and closed its embassy in London in November after Britain recalled its diplomatic mission in Tehran due to massive protests in front of the British embassy complex by thousands of Iranian students who demanded a cut of ties with London. The Iranian students' November protests at the British mission came after the Iranian legislators in an open session of the parliament in November approved the bill of a law on downgrading relations with Britain. After the parliament approval, Iran expelled the British ambassador from Tehran. The parliament approval came a week after the US and Britain targeted Iranian financial sectors with new punitive measures, including sanctions on Iran's Central Bank and petrochemical industry. The sanction against CBI and Iran's petrochemical industry was adopted in a unilateral move by the US, Canada and Britain outside the UN Security Council as other council members, specially Russia and China, had earlier warned against any fresh punitive measure, including sanctions, against Iran. The British government has also embarked on delisting the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of terrorist groups. The Iranian lawmakers initially started drafting a bill to downgrade ties with London after Britain's direct involvement in stirring post-election unrests in Iran in 2009, but they intensified and accelerated the move after former British Envoy to Tehran Simon Gass criticized the human rights situation in Iran. "Today, International Human Rights Day is highlighting the cases of those people around the world who stand up for the rights of others - the lawyers, journalists and NGO workers who place themselves at risk to defend their countrymen," Gass said in a memo published by the British Embassy in Tehran on December 9, 2010. "Nowhere are they under greater threat than in Iran. Since last year human rights defenders have been harassed and imprisoned," Gass added. Following Britain's support for a group of wild demonstrators who disrespected Islamic sanctities and damaged private and public amenities and properties in Tehran on December 27, 2009, members of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission drafted bill of a law requiring the country's Foreign Ministry to cut relations with Britain completely. The British government's blatant stance and repeated remarks in support of the last year unrests inside Iran and London's espionage operations and financial and media support for the opposition groups are among the reasons mentioned in the bill for cutting ties with Britain. Iran has repeatedly accused the West of stoking post-election unrests, singling out Britain and the US for meddling. Tehran expelled two British diplomats and arrested a number of local staffs of the British embassy in Tehran after documents and evidence substantiated London's interfering role in stirring post-election riots in Iran. In December, a senior Iranian lawmaker underlined that the British member of the House of Commons, Jack Straw, is due to visit Iran to pave the way for the normalization of ties between the two states. “Britain’s parliamentary delegation has asked Iran-UK Parliamentary Friendship Group to travel to Iran and we also agreed with Straw’s visit after studying the case,” Head of Iran-Britain Parliamentary Friendship Group Abbasali Mansouri Arani said last month. He reiterated that Straw’s visit is a quite normal travel which regularly takes place between the worlds’ parliaments. Mansouri Arani further pointed to a visit to Tehran by Britain’s new non-resident charge d'affaires to Iran Ajay Sharma and said Sharma was on a mission to hold consultations with Iranian officials and reopen Britain’s mission to Iran. In October, Iran and Britain agreed to announce the names of their non-resident charges d’affaires. In a meeting at the UN Headquarters in New York City on September 23, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his British counterpart William Hague discussed improvement of Tehran-London relations, Iran’s nuclear energy program as well as regional developments.