APPENDIX 11
Memorandum submitted by Professor A Ehteshami,
University of Durham
ROLE AND POLICIES OF THE FCO IN RELATION
TO IRAN
Thank you for inviting me to provide written evidence
for this important committee's investigation of the FCO's role
and policies in relation to Iran.
Normal diplomatic relations between Britain
and the Islamic Republic today belie the many tense years that
used to characterise bilateral relations in the 1980s and early
1990s. After some 30 years of fairly close and mutually advantageous
political and economic relations after the fall of the nationalist
government of Dr Mossadeq in 1953, Anglo-Iranian relations nose
dived following the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy in 1979.
Between 1974 and the revolution, Iran had crept up the trade ladder
to become Britain's largest market in the Middle East. Ironically,
in the heady days of the revolution the Shah and his allies came
to regard the BBC as an instrument of British foreign policy an
held the corporation responsible for carrying out the Foreign
Office's strategy of encouraging the anti-Shah demonstrators.
[3]The
British government, however, was vocal in its support for the
Shah. Foreign Secretary David Owen went on the record in October
1978, praising the Shah and expressing the view that the Shah's
departure would not be in the West's interests.
Not surprisingly, and despite the impression
amongst the middle classes in Iran that Britain was somehow supporting
the anti-Shah forces in the 1978-79 revolution, soon after the
victory of the revolution relations between London and the new
Islamist regime in Tehran rapidly deteriorated. This was partly
due to the unreserved support that the British government had
been issuing for the Shah throughout the crisis. In addition,
the attacks on the US and British embassies in Tehran in November
1979 changed the picture dramatically, and Britain's forthright
condemnation of Iran's holding of US diplomats hostage had the
immediate effect of practically severing all contacts. [4]In
fact, Britain's embassy in Tehran was to shut in September, to
be re-opened for a short period after the freeing of American
hostages in 1981.
During the Iran-Iraq war, Britain's official
position of no support for the combatants was weakened by reports
that Britain was knowingly allowing Iran's NIOC infrastructure
in London to buy arms for the war effort. Another example of Britain's
quiet engagement with Iran during the early 1980s was its preparedness
to assist in the eradication of the Communist Tudeh Party threat
to the Islamic government in 1982, by passing on the names of
the Tudeh members in the government which it had come to acquire
through its own intelligence network. But such clandestine links
did not feed into any meaningful or direct exchanges between the
two governments. Matters were made worse by the Iranian perceptions
that Sir Anthony Parsons, Britain's UN representative with a permanent
seat at the Security Council during the early first few years
of the Iran-Iraq war, had not done enough to encourage the Council
to issue a fair resolution on Iraq's invasion of Iranian territory
in September 1980 and on what Tehran saw to be an act of aggression
against the country. [5]
Other problems in the 1980s, including diplomatic
confrontations over the conduct of the remaining diplomatic staff
in each other's countries, the holding of Roger Cooper as a prisoner
in Iran, and the eventual closure of Iran's Consulate office in
Manchester in 1987, all fed into the tense diplomatic relations
between Tehran and London. But it was the hostage crisis in Lebanon,
which followed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, that resulted
in bitter acrimony between the two governments. By way of background,
the Israeli invasion led to the strengthening of a new Shia organisation
in Lebanon, the Hazbollah, and this organisation's ability to
undertake large scale military operations and play the political
game of taking Westerners as hostages. Several Westerners, including
three Britons, became victims in the 1980s of Hezbollah's hostage
politics and a potential political football in relations between
Tehran and the West. Britain, unlike some of her European partners
at the time, refused to negotiate with hostage-takers and their
masters and therefore refused to use the hostages issue as a means
of diplomatic communications with Tehran. Britain's approach to
the hostages issue did nonetheless hurt its overall diplomatic
relations with Iran.
Iran's decision to deploy sea mines in the Persian
Gulf in 1987 did not help bilateral relations either as it merely
led to the strengthening of Britain's naval presence in the Persian
Gulf and more tensions between Tehran and the West. By the end
of the Iran-Iraq war in July 1988, Britain had one of the largest
naval forces in the Gulf, including minesweepers and frigates.
On the diplomatic front also, London had seen its diplomatic profile
in the Middle East severely tested. It had broken off relations
with three important Middle Eastern countries: Iran, Libya and
Syria, though under different circumstances, and had proved unable
to make progress on freeing its nationals held hostage by pro-Iranian
Islamist groups in Lebanon. By November 1988 however, London had
managed to restore relations with Iran and was in the process
of shaking the dust off its embassy building in Tehran, when another
crisis hit bilateral relations. [6]
This time, relations were beset by a range of
problems associated with the outbreak of the so-called Rushdie
affair in 1989—Ayatollah Khomeini's decision to condemn
the British author, Salman Rushdie, to death through the issuing
of a religious edict (fatwa) for the publication of his book The
Satanic Verses. This crisis, ignited by forces totally beyond
Britain's control, was to dog the two countries' civil servants
for the best part of the 1990s. For London, the issue was much
more complex than just grappling with an uncertain set of diplomatic
calculations. As the fatwa impinged on the very essence of Western
liberal values it was felt that it was incumbent on Britain's
diplomatic service to reject the fatwa on principle, as well as
for its clear breach of international conventions and apparent
interference in Britain's internal affairs. But, ironically, it
was Tehran (with strong pressure from the country's parliament)
which, in protest against London's refusal to stop the sale of
the book or take action against its author, not only imposed economic
sanctions on Britain but actually broke off the short-lived relations
as well.
The next stage in the evolution of relations
between Britain and Islamic Iran was defined by the parameters
of the EU initiative to enter a process of discussions and negotiations
with Iran, a process of engagement which became known as "critical
dialogue". Within a few years, critical dialogue had given
way to "constructive engagement", through which closer
and more positive contacts between EU diplomats and their Iranian
counterparts ensued. The constructive engagement framework provided
Britain (which was a member of the EU Troika team in the negotiations
with Tehran) with the perfect setting for developing its own frozen
ties with Iran. This framework served to foster direct contact
and a better understanding between the parties. So much so that
both London and Tehran took advantage of it at the first opportunity—that
is, after their respective important May 1997 general elections
in which both electorates brought to power pro-dialogue and pro-reform
governments. The Labour government's election victory coincided
with Britain's EU Presidency, which the Foreign Office used to
a maximum in order to reach out to Iran. Within a relatively short
period of time after the election victory of the Labour government,
for instance, the Foreign Secretary and the late Derek Fatchett
announced that London was very keen to improve relations with
Iran, using conciliatory vocabulary not often used by the previous
government in relation to Iran.
Lower-level and behind the scenes contacts in
1998 culminated in the two countries' new foreign ministers holding
a public and highly significant meeting at the UN in September
1998 during which they finally removed the Rushdie issue as an
obstacle to the restoration of relations. [7]The
agreement reached in New York provided the basis for the re-establishment
of relations and ambassadorial level, despite it being attacked
by powerful anti-Khatami factions in Iran. Considering the sensitivity
of Ayatollah Khomeini's anti-Rushdie fatwa in Iran and the fact
that it had been Tehran which had broken off relations in 1989,
their restoration must be seen as a success for the negotiating
skills of the FCO.
Foreign Minister Kharrazi's visit to London
in January 2000 marked the pinnacle of relations between the two
countries since the 1979 Iranian revolution. He came to London
at the head of a relatively large commercial-oriented delegation
and met both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. This
was the first time that a cabinet minister from the Islamic Republic
had set foot in 10 Downing Street. This highly significant and
successful visit was made possible by the efforts of the FCO's
representatives in Iran as well as their London-based counterparts.
FM Kharrazi's visit had been preceded by the
visits of a British parliamentary delegation in mid-November and
Sir John Kerr's trip to Tehran in late November 1999, in order
to prepare the ground for this historic visit. The fruitful visits
to City institutions by members of his delegation and FM Kharrazi's
warm reception at Chatham House highlighted the progress in relations
which had been made since the return to Tehran of Britain's highly
able ambassador (HE Mr Nick Brown) and his hardworking team. These
diplomatic advances after all had occurred on the back of the
visits to Tehran of two high-level economic delegations which
included several FTSE 100 companies in May 1998 and June 1999
respectively. If the UN meetings between the two countries' foreign
ministers in September 1998 finally melted away the diplomatic
ice, it was these trade missions which had caused the ice to break.
To put the speed (and success) of recent exchanges in perspective,
it was announced only in May 1999 that London and Tehran were
upgrading their relations to the ambassadorial level. Within a
few months of this announcement both countries took major steps
to build on the favourable climate and develop closer economic,
cultural and technical links.
In this regard, the postponement of FM Cook's
scheduled visit to Tehran in May 2000 was not well received in
that country, raising suspicions about London's sincerity to want
to deepen and develop its ties with Iran. Nor of course did it
serve in any way the advances already made in bilateral relations.
The postponement of Cook's much heralded trip to Iran stood in
sharp contrast to the fruitful visits of foreign ministers and
heads of state from several of Britain's European allies, including
Italy, Germany, Austria, France to Iran since the election victory
of President Khatami in 1997. For Britain not to be seen to be
falling behind, therefore, it needs to present itself in Tehran
at the highest political level—FM Cook needs to visit and
hopefully before the next round of elections in the two countries.
Otherwise, we may unwittingly be endangering the process of dialogue
and exchanges now under way between Iran and the United Kingdom.
3 Britain's last ambassador to the Pahlavi court, the
late Sir Anthony Parsons, mentions in his memoirs that "there
was evidence that the BBC broadcasts were actually stimulating
demonstrations and riots". The Pride and the Fall: Iran
1974 to 1979 (London: Cape, 1984), p 73. Back
4 Other problems during 1979-80 period included the Iranian embassy
crisis in May in London; Britain's support for the imposition
of sanctions on Iran; and news of harsh treatment of Iranian Anglican
ministers by the Islamic authorities. Back
5 Sir Anthony Parsons relates the unfolding of events in the United
Nations in the following terms: ". . . Iraqi pressure succeeded
in postponing a meeting of the Security Council for some days
. . . Equally, because of the impact of the hostage crisis . .
. the Permanent Members were not immediately disposed to make
a serious effort to overcome this obstacle . . . On 28 September,
the Council . . . met and SCR 479 (1980) was unanimously adopted
. . . However, the fact of the Council's delay in meeting and
the failure of the first resolution to call for Iraqi withdrawal
from Iranian territory made a profoundly negative impression on
the Iranian delegation . . . [they] castigated the Council for
inactivity and bias . . .", Sir Anthony Parsons, "Iran
and United Nations, with Particular Reference to the Iran-Iraq
War", in Ehteshami and Varasteh (eds) Iran and International
Community (London: Routeledge, 1991), pp 7-30. Back
6 Tehran and London had signed a detailed Memorandum of Understanding
on 9 November 1988, which was to provide the basis for the restoration
of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The FCO played
an instrumental part during these delicate negotiations, and its
Iran experts provided badly-needed advice on the prevailing mood
in Tehran and the direction and nature of the negotiations with
Iran's representatives. Back
7 Britain, in return, agreed undertook to ban the activities of
the MKO in the country. Back
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