British Foreign Policy Towards The I.R. Iran With Special Reference To The Two Main British Governing Parties: 2000-2015
The present British Labour party’s foreign policy towards developing countries, in the beginning of the first decade of the twenty first century, as has been so far discussed in the article is on the whole uncontroversial in the United Kingdom, thus traces back to the strategy launched in practice in the Colombo Plan of 1950, which was seen in this article.
As in the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran, during the first decade of the twenty first century, 2000-2015, when for most of the period, the Labour government had been in office, before the Conservative party moved into power in the summer of 2010, as a result of size, population, but essentially its richness in natural resources, due to the United Kingdom’s economic need for trade, and more specifically, the Labour government’s attitude and approaches towards foreign policy, which views as vital for British economy as has been discussed earlier in this article, attempts were made by the Labour to revive, and engage the two countries into a dialogue, and consequently relationship.
Diplomatic relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the United Kingdom considerably improved by nearly the beginning of twenty first century, when in 1998, a high ranking British trade delegation from the UK Department of Trade, and Industry, visited Iran, which eventually led to normalization of Tehran, London relations. In 2001, however, following the Labour trade politician’s visit of 1998 to Tehran, for the first time since the Islamic revolution in Iran, the most top level British visit to Tehran took place, led by Jack Straw, the Labour Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. (This particular normalization of Irano-UK relations was after the Salman Rushdie affairs, which reduced the diplomatic ties between the two countries at chargé d’affaires level in 1990.)
Prior to Jack Straw’s taking of Office as the UK Labour Foreign Secretary, his predecessor, Robin Cook, another UK Labour Foreign Secretary, under the banner of ‘ethical foreign policy’, had been working towards the restoration of Anglo-Iranian full diplomatic relations. Moves, in line with the Labour party’s foreign policy doctrine of shrewd economic considerations, as it is in the core of Labour foreign policy, which was witnessed in this article, since immediately, afterwards, came the news of how delighted British firms became, especially in the oil and gas field. Soon after, Britain enjoyed a large surplus of $596 m in 1999-2000.14
The Irano-UK return to full diplomatic relations isolated the United State, at the time, it is sanctions against Tehran, and asserted temporarily, Britain’s stand in the Middle East. This was because, the sanctions became the main obstacle in the way of a principle across Iran carrying the oil and gas from the Caspian, and Central Asia to its deep water port at Bandar Abbas, in the Persian Gulf. A proposal, which was for the oil industry, vastly cheaper, much simpler and preferable to the alternative of a pipeline to either Russia or Turkey’s Mediterranean coasts.15
