Britain’s foreign minister warned against leaving Iran in isolation Monday just as the two countries made symbolic moves to smooth over diplomatic relations.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday, told BBC in an interview that "Iran is too large a player to simply leave in isolation," cautioning that Britain should "tread carefully" in its relations with Tehran.
"Yes, we should tread carefully," Hammond said. "There is a deep legacy of distrust on both sides, and we have major areas where we have very substantial policy differences, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be talking."
The meeting between Hammond and Rouhani in Tehran came just one day after Britain and Iran reopened their respective embassies. The British embassy in Iran was shuttered almost four years ago amid protests over Britain’s support of tougher sanctions on Tehran for its nuclear program.
While Hammond described himself as "not blind" to Iran’s human rights record and other areas of concern, he said the country does see "eye-to-eye" with Britain on issues like countering the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIL or ISIS) and prohibiting opium trafficking between Afghanistan and Europe.
He insisted that reopening diplomacy was the "sensible way forward" for the countries to smooth relations.
"In all of the meetings we’ve been to we’ve heard a consistent message that Iran wants to do business with Britain, that it wants to see a new chapter in our relationship, that Iran will very much be open to British and other foreign businesses in this next phase," Hammond explained.
Hammond offered no guarantees Iran will not press forward in pursuit of a nuclear weapon even in light of the recently brokered nuclear deal.
"My judgement is that whatever Iran has or hasn’t been doing in the past, the regime, the Iranian people, have come to the conclusion that pursuing, or being believed to pursue, an illegal military nuclear programme just imposes too great a cost on Iran," Hammond said.
The nuclear deal, reached in Vienna between Iran and the P5+1 in July, is currently undergoing scrutiny as the United States Congress takes its 60-day review period to assess the agreement. While President Obama and some Democrats have stood by the deal, many lawmakers from both parties have expressed opposition.
Much criticism of the deal is rooted in the belief that it relies on the trust of the Iran regime, which the Obama administration has denied. Congressional lawmakers have been increasingly suspicious of secret side agreements to the deal that govern the inspection of one of Iran’s nuclear facilities as well as the extent to which the country must admit to the details of its alleged nuclear weapons program.
Last week, an apparent draft of one of the secret agreements indicated that Tehran will be permitted to use its own experts to inspect the Parchin nuclear site believed to have housed nuclear arms development.
Despite Obama’s continuous attempt to sell the agreement, a growing majority of Americans want Congress to reject it.