Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab underlined in Foreign Office Questions in Parliament this week that the UK and international partners “will strive… to continue the arms embargo on Iran”.
Responding to a question by Jacob Young MP, the Foreign Secretary said: “In order to hold Iran’s feet to the fire and to hold them to account, the United Kingdom, with our French and German partners, triggered the dispute resolution mechanism. I was in Berlin last week for E3 consultations about how we will approach this issue and how we will continue to hold Iran to account. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; we will strive with all of our international partners to continue the arms embargo on Iran”.
The MP for Redcar had raised concerns about Iran’s destabilisation of the region, stating: “The UN arms embargo on Iran is due to expire in October 2020, in line with the 2015 nuclear deal, yet Iran has continued to flagrantly breach the deal since the UK triggered the dispute resolution mechanism in January”.
He asked: “Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the absence of meaningful consequences has emboldened Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions and further destabilise the region? Will he act urgently, with international partners, to extend the UN arms embargo?”
This week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US Special Representative to Iran, Brian Hook, where he warned that Iran had been deliberately misleading the international community in regards to its nuclear ambitions.
Hook said that Israel and the US “see eye to eye” on the need to extend the UN conventional arms embargo, warning that its expiration would allow it to export more arms to its regional proxies.
Last month, in a joint article published in the Jewish Chronicle, CFI Honorary President Lord Polak and Labour peer Lord Turnberg have called on the UK to “stop treating Iran like an ally” and urged for an extension of the UN arms embargo on the country.
