This week, numerous Conservative parliamentarians have raised concerns over Iran’s continued breaches of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Nuclear Deal and destabilising behaviour, in a series of oral and written contributions.
In Foreign Office Questions, Paul Holmes MP said that Iran’s decision to resume enriching uranium to 20% purity is “enormously concerning, and is arguably the most significant breach of the JCPOA”. He urged the UK Government to “put much-needed pressure on Iran to return to compliance”.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab condemned Iran’s “serial non-compliance” and welcomed President-elect Biden’s intention of “enhancing and strengthening” the JCPOA.
Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat MBE MP urged the Government to work together with “friends and partners in the region” to “stop this malevolent dictatorship expanding its evil reach any further”.
Scott Benton MP raised concerns about Iran’s involvement in Yemen, where the Islamic Republic is “exploiting the conflict for its own ends”. He asked the Middle East Minister if he agreed “that until Iranian aspirations for regional dominance are curtailed, this conflict and many others will continue and more lives will sadly be lost?”
Middle East Minister James Cleverly agreed that Iran’s “destabilising influence” in Yemen has “stoked further conflict”.
“We remain deeply concerned at Iran’s political, financial and military support to a number of militant and proscribed groups in the region, and we will continue working with international partners to dissuade Iran from proliferation and wider destabilising actions”, he added.
In the House of Lords, CFI Honorary President Lord Polak CBE called on the UK Government to “take the earliest opportunity” with the Biden administration to discuss Iran’s breaches of the JCPOA, particularly the production of uranium metal which has “no credible civilian use”.
He encouraged the UK to “strengthen any deals with Iran to ensure the disbanding of its nuclear programme in its entirety and, at the same time, stop its destabilising behaviour in the region”.
Parliamentarians have raised concerns over Iran’s actions in a number of written questions in recent weeks, with Baroness Eaton, Rt. Hon. Robert Halfon MP, Jack Lopresti MP and Alexander Stafford MP raising concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme.
