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Iran still has an off-ramp for diplomacy, says David Lammy UK prepared to defend interests in Middle East, Lammy says
(about 4 hours later)
Lammy questioned on legality of US strikes on IranLammy questioned on legality of US strikes on Iran
Foreign Secretary David Lammy has urged Iran to take "the off-ramp" and return to the negotiating table. The UK is prepared to defend British interests in the Middle East, the foreign secretary has said, as attacks between Israel and Iran continue.
Iran has vowed there will be "everlasting consequences" following US strikes at the weekend, intended to take out the country's nuclear programme. David Lammy said the UK's "force protection" in the region was at its highest level, after Iran vowed to respond to US strikes on its nuclear facilities.
Lammy said he had told Iran that it would be a "catastrophic mistake" for them to retaliate by firing at US bases, or by blockading the key shipping lane of the Strait of Hormuz. In a statement to MPs, Lammy urged Iran to "dial this thing down" and negotiate with the US immediately.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Lammy said he had told the Iranian foreign minister to take a message to the Iranian leadership to "get serious about their nuclear programme". The foreign secretary said the legality of the US bombing of Iran's nuclear programme was a matter for the Trump administration and stressed the UK was not involved in the attack.
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US asks China to stop Iran from closing Strait of HormuzUS asks China to stop Iran from closing Strait of Hormuz
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He added: "They have to get serious about the off-ramp that is being made available to them. Lammy said Iran could not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and stated the US had "taken action to alleviate that threat".
"There is still an off-ramp and I was discussing that with the Iranian foreign minister again on the phone yesterday. But he did not explicitly say whether the UK government supported the US strikes in Iran, or whether he thought they complied with international law.
"We, alongside all of our partners in the G7, across Europe and across the Arab world and the Levant, are urging the Iranians to get serious both with the E3 - us, Germany and France - but also with the United States." The two strands of his statement to MPs demonstrated the balancing act the government is performing on the international stage and in domestic politics.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer stressed the UK was not involved in the US strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran - Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo - on Saturday night. "The situation presents serious risk to British interests in the region, having moved in additional assets on a precautionary basis, force protection is at its highest levels," Lammy said in the House of Commons.
He also warned of the risk of escalation, and said he wanted to reassure people that "we're doing everything we can to stabilise the situation". "Be in no doubt, we are prepared to defend our personnel, our assets and those of our allies and partners."
Sir Keir reiterated his call for de-escalation on Monday, adding that he wanted to protect people in the UK from further energy price rises. Last week, the UK sent more military aircraft, including Typhoon jets and air-to-air refuelers, to the Middle East "for contingency support across the region".
"Let me reassure everybody watching: we are absolutely focused on de-escalation in the Middle East," he said, adding: "That's because of the concern about escalation for the region and beyond but also the impact on our economy." In his statement, Lammy said an RAF aircraft had evacuated 63 British nationals from Tel Aviv in Israel, to Cyprus, from where they will be taken to the UK, adding that more flights would follow.
While Washington acted alone in ordering and executing the strikes, the prime minister did not need to make a decision about UK involvement. He confirmed that one British national in Israel had been injured during Iranian missile attacks.
But, depending on if, how and when Iran chooses to retaliate, some of the trade-offs involved could soon return for the government. And he said the UK was warning British citizens in Qatar to shelter in place "until further notice", after the US issued the same alert.
Ministers have made clear they don't want a nuclear armed Iran; but neither is it saying it supports Washington's means of trying to remove that outcome, by bombing Tehran's nuclear facilities. The BBC understands that there is "a credible threat" to the US-run Coalition Air Operations Centre at Al-Udaid in Qatar.
Pressed on whether the US strikes were legal, Lammy responded: "I don't say it's not legitimate" and said there was "no moral equivalence" with the UK's clear stance that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was illegal. Lammy's statement came after US President Donald Trump said American strikes had "totally obliterated" three Iranian nuclear facilities on Saturday night.
However, he also acknowledged that diplomatic efforts had not stopped the Iranians enriching uranium, so "clearly it was not working". The foreign secretary told MPs he was not able to give a clear assessment of the damage done to Iran's nuclear programme and repeated his plea to resume negotiations.
The foreign secretary said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had "confirmed the 60% enrichment" and the Iranians were still "obfuscating and engaged in deception". He added: "Strikes cannot destroy the knowledge Iran has acquired over several decades, nor any regime ambition to deploy that knowledge to build a nuclear weapon."
Lammy said that, if Iran obtained nuclear weapons, there was likely to be "nuclear proliferation across the Middle East, the world would be seriously more dangerous, and that's why it must be stopped". Lammy and other ministers have been focusing their efforts on de-escalating the situation through diplomatic means.
He said: "Yes they can have a civil nuclear capability that's properly monitored, that involves outsiders, but they cannot continue to enrich to 60%... Why do they need 60% enrichment if not for a nuclear weapon?" Earlier he told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it would be a "catastrophic mistake" for Iran to retaliate by firing at US bases, or by blockading the key shipping lane of the Strait of Hormuz.
But the foreign secretary said that "ultimately" the only solution to dealing with the Iranian nuclear programme was through diplomacy, "because the expertise still exists in the country, it's likely that some of the material still exists in the country". But the government's failure to clearly state whether they support the American and Israeli bombing of Iran's nuclear sites has been pounced on by opposition parties.
The IAEA, the UN's nuclear watchdog, held an emergency meeting on Monday, with director Rafael Grossi demanding Iran allow agency inspectors access to its highly enriched uranium stockpiles, including the "400 kilograms enriched to 60%". Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said the Labour government had "tried to hide and obfuscate on whether or not they support the US' action".
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch told a Policy Exchange event she was worried the government was "not trusted by our allies", claiming "both the US and Israel have said so, not in quite so many words". She said "the British public deserve to know if their government supports degrading the threat of Iran to us and our allies, or whether it is all too happy to sit on the moral fence".
Asked whether she believed the UK was being cut out of operational decisions, she said: "I can't prove that. but that's my suspicion, from the comments the foreign secretary himself was making." The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller tried to pull Lammy in the other direction.
She added: "That's a very, very dangerous place to be, because it means they don't know what's going on. If they don't know what's going on, they cannot plan. We need to be plugged into what's happening with our allies." He accused the US and Israel of adopting a "might is right" approach that he said undermined the international rules-based order and risked a "full-scale regional war".
Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey accused ministers of "dodging questions".
He said: "Trump's strikes on Iran were a seismic moment which will have a profound effect on global security for many years to come.
"But UK ministers are dodging questions on whether they support these strikes, and failing to guarantee that we won't be dragged into another illegal American war in the Middle East."
Lammy is expected to make a statement in the House of Commons later.
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