Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Programme

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Martin Horwood

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this timely debate. I do not agree with all the points he made, but he made some important points about, for instance, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium being among the considerations the negotiators must take on board.

The news that the Foreign Secretary brought to the House yesterday about progress in the negotiations, or the talks about talks, and about Foreign Minister Zarif proving to be someone whom western powers could do business with, was very welcome. We should reflect for a minute on how far we have come in a year and a half. I was looking back on some notes from May last year, and we were talking then about the risk of strikes on Iran and of a regional war being sparked by preventive strikes against Iran by the United States or by conflict breaking out over the strait of Hormuz. The situation now is not quite unrecognisable, but it has moved a considerable distance.

One crucial change is the election in the summer of President Rouhani. We may think that the electoral process was flawed, and we may think that the constitution of Iran is flawed and still gives too much power to the theocracy, but the election was undoubtedly genuinely contested, and it has undoubtedly changed the political landscape. We must therefore be a little wary of doing a reverse of the Whig interpretation of history: nobody naively believes that things will always get better, but we must never fall into the trap of thinking things can never get better. We must take advantage of the situation when someone such as President Rouhani is elected, because he is at least saying many of the right things, and he appears to be acting in many of the right ways.

In its statements over the past six months on President Rouhani and the situation in Iran, the Foreign Office has been very cautious and guarded, and it has talked about actions speaking louder than words. I have sometimes found that a little frustrating, and we could have seen a bit more enthusiasm for the reforming faction in Iran. However, if I am criticising the Foreign Office for going a bit too slowly, and others are criticising it for going too fast, it has perhaps got things just about right.

We should applaud the diplomatic efforts that have been made by British, international and, in this case, European Union diplomats. I was struck by the Foreign Secretary’s praise of Baroness Ashton in the House yesterday. She is, as a Brit, demonstrating not only the great British tradition of diplomacy, but the potential for the European Union to play a positive role in world diplomacy, not displacing, but complementing, national diplomacy. That is very positive.

There are three points that I would like to make. The first builds on my point about seeing the positive potential, rather than always accentuating the negative. I would ask the Foreign Office to be robust not only in pursuing the positive avenue of negotiations, but in standing up to anyone we traditionally think of as an ally who might try to stall the negotiations or prevent them from making too much progress.

There are two countries that I am particularly concerned about. One is Saudi Arabia. The Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, made an interesting comment last month. He said that following Washington’s failure to strike Syria and its entering into nuclear talks with Iran, there would be a major shift in Saudi Arabia’s relations with it. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s perspective on American-Saudi relations and on our own relationships with Saudi Arabia, in the context of the Iranian nuclear talks. I hope we will not allow Saudi Arabia to stall our progress in this area.

Through the channel of this debate, I would tell the Saudi Government that if they look back to the 1990s, to the presidencies of Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami in Iran, they will see that there were much more cordial relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It has been only since the election of Ahmadinejad in 2005 and then the coming to power of King Abdullah that the two countries have got into a regional cold war and have almost been fighting proxy battles as rival regional powers from Bahrain to Syria to other places across the middle east. That is regrettable, and they should perhaps realise that the presidency of President Rouhani offers a path back to more constructive engagement.

Like the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), I also have concerns about Israel. We have not heard very constructive comments from Prime Minister Netanyahu about the E3 plus 3 talks. He has expressed real fear that they will result in a deal that

“will not work for Israel”.

However, Israel must also see its long-term interests. Surely, the most positive thing for Israel would be a process that ultimately leads towards a nuclear-free middle east and certainly one that has a realistic prospect of achieving a nuclear-free Iran.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I apologise to the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) for not congratulating him on securing the debate. Does the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) not think that the situation between the Israeli Government and the Palestinians is linked to this issue? That must be part of a solution in the middle east, because we cannot have a settlement with Iran in isolation. Does the hon. Gentleman also not think that the settlements Israel has been building have thrown some difficulties in the way of the road map to peace? Finally, despite what the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, there were demonstrations two or three years ago in Iran, and the opposition came close to winning the election. Internally, that may be motivating the regime a lot more than the hon. Gentleman suggested.