‘Iranians right not to trust Britain’: Straw

‘Iranians right not to trust Britain’ Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:59:58 GMT.......... Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has admitted that Britain’s complicity in the plots against Iran throughout the history justifies the Iranians’ mistrust of the UK. In an article published in The Telegraph on Monday, Straw detailed the role of Britain in conspiracies against Iran, referring to a popular Persian saying, which reads “the hand of England” is behind whatever befalls the Iranians. “Few in the UK have the remotest idea of our active interference in Iran’s internal affairs from the 19th century on, but the Iranians can recite every detail. From an oppressive British tobacco monopoly in 1890, through truly extortionate terms for the extraction of oil by the D’Arcy petroleum company (later BP), to putting Reza Shah on the throne in the 1920s; from jointly occupying the country, with the Soviet Union, from 1941-46, organising (with the CIA) the coup to remove the elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, then propping up the increasingly brutal regime of the Shah [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi] until its collapse in 1979, our role has not been a pretty one. Think how we’d feel if it had been the other way round,” he said. The British Labour party politician also called for the West’s “normalization of relations with Iran” due to the Islamic Republic’s “considerable capacity to make conditions in its unstable neighbors”. “An early priority for the UK should be the reopening of the embassies in Tehran and London,” he added. This comes as last month former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband also criticized the UK government policies, saying it was a mistake for Britain to close its embassy in the Iranian capital, Tehran. Furthermore, Straw said threatening Iran with military action over its nuclear energy program is a hindrance to the process of talks between Iran and world powers. Iran and the P5+1 group have held several rounds of talks with the main focus on Iran’s nuclear energy program. The latest round of negotiations is now being held between the two sides in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The United States, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program. Over the false allegation, Washington and the European Union (EU) have imposed several rounds of illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Iran refutes the allegation and argues that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. == http://edition.presstv.ir/TextOnly/detail.aspx?id=291025