Iran

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register of Members’ interests. I am the unpaid chairman of the British Iranian Chamber of Commerce. I join the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in condemning the cruel treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe; the extension of her sentence without even a court hearing was an absolute disgrace. I have seen through my work as a trade envoy that the Government are making huge efforts to get Nazanin released. I have been in many meetings where the subject has been put very forcefully to Iranian Ministers.

It is also shameful that Iran should attempt—or appears to be attempting—to link the fate of a young, innocent woman to the tank money owed to Iran by the UK. The two should never be linked, although I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that many of us are puzzled by the Government’s failure to pay the debt and meet Iran’s claim, which, after all, has been upheld by the UK courts. If it is US sanctions that are preventing the UK Government resolving this issue, that would in itself be bizarre. I would be grateful if the Minister could give us a specific reason why this money cannot be paid.

I will concentrate mainly on the JCPOA and the arguments put by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. It would be a mistake to think of the JCPOA only as something helpful to Iran. It is immensely important to the rest of the world. That is why it would be a mistake to link the efforts to get Nazanin and others home to their families with any negotiations over the JCPOA. That agreement would have prevented Iran getting a nuclear weapon for 15 years. It was a good agreement and, I believe, extremely important.

The best way of ensuring that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon is for the United States to return to the agreement that it broke. Despite the confirmation from the International Atomic Energy Agency on 10 or 11 occasions that Iran was complying with the agreement, it was Donald Trump who, unilaterally and for no good reason, tore up the agreement and imposed punitive sanctions on Iran. This hit ordinary people extremely heavily and had the effect of undermining the political standing of the moderate President Rouhani, who favours engagement with the West. It confirmed the suspicions and accusations of hardliners in Tehran that the US and the West could not be trusted.

Those, like Mr Netanyahu, who claimed that President Rouhani was just some cynical PR front figure for hardliners ought to contemplate what is now happening in Tehran, where steps are being taken in the Iranian Parliament to put the former President on trial for having negotiated an agreement that has had such bad effects on Iran and Iran’s economy. The only way forward is for the US to rejoin the JCPOA and for Iran to return to the enrichment and centrifuge limits set in the agreement. Iran has indicated that all the recent steps it has taken to boost its enrichment and number of centrifuges are reversible—in other words, that it is establishing a negotiating position. To attempt new, additional demands on Iran, such as to agree a follow-up agreement on regional issues, would be totally counterproductive. Iran has not returned to the negotiating table. We need to get Iran back to that table but it will not return until the additional sanctions imposed by Trump have been removed.

I also strongly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said about trying to find common ground with Iran—on areas where we have a mutual interest. Indeed, Afghanistan is one such area; the Taliban are very strong enemies of Iran. Before this situation, Iran had already taken 4 million refugees and, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, has probably had another 700,000 in the last few weeks. Fighting ISIS was another area of common ground where there was initially some co-operation, but it eventually broke down. Although there had been a certain amount of mutual understanding, it was at a distance.

Narcotics are another common interest. We used to have a Metropolitan Police presence in Afghanistan. I agree that the more we find common ground, the more we might find that we make progress on other issues, such as the dual citizens who are being held so wrongly.

As I said, I have been involved in some talks with Iranian Ministers. I have worked with the families of some of the other people—not of Nazanin herself—who have been in similar situations. I know that the Government are trying extremely hard on this. Let us keep that going, but we ought also to make it a major objective to get Iran back to the negotiating table on the JCPOA. Without the JCPOA, the Middle East is an even more dangerous place.