Iran (Nuclear Talks)

Debate between Nick Raynsford and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Although I endorse the approach that the Foreign Secretary has taken towards the negotiations and the obvious long-term benefit of reaching an agreement, may I express a little bit of surprise at the reasons he has given for not progressing faster with the re-establishment of our embassy in Tehran?

The Foreign Secretary will know that this is not the first time we have had to re-establish an embassy; he may not know, but I do, that I visited as a Minister in 2000 when the Khatami regime was opening up the prospect of re-establishing relationships. Although there are undoubtedly difficulties that have to be overcome to guarantee the freedom of our ambassador and staff to work effectively, I would have thought that if there was a will, there would be a way—and I hope that he will pursue that.

[Mr Hammond]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we are pursuing the issue actively with the Iranians, but we are clear that we do not want to reopen an embassy on a half-baked basis. If we are to go back in and reopen our embassy, we have to be able to set up the communications and IT systems that we need, and we must be able to import into Iran the equipment that we need to do that. We continue to discuss with the Iranians the arrangements that we might be able to agree with them to enable us to do that, but we have not succeeded in reaching an agreement.