British embassy reopening underlines Europe’s eagerness to — News Analysis

British embassy as Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond visits Iran to reopen it on August 23, 2015 in the capital Tehran.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif welcomed the reopening of the British Embassy, saying it showed Iran’s regional and global significance.

“We have seen our relationship steadily improve, step by step”, Hammond said, mentioning Prime Minister David Cameron’s meeting with Rouhani in New York last autumn, the first at that level between the countries since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Since then, the reopening of the embassy has been held up by technical problems over visa policy and communications equipment, Mr Hammond has said. The journey marked the primary time a British overseas secretary has visited Tehran since 2003.

Iran is simultaneously reopening its embassy in London.

Iran is acting more warmly toward Britain following last month’s landmark worldwide deal over Tehran’s nuclear arms research.

“In the first instance, we will want to ensure that the nuclear agreement is a success, including by encouraging trade and investment once sanctions are lifted”, he said, referring to a recent Iranian deal with world powers over its nuclear program.

After more than a decade of casting the Islamic Republic as a rogue power seeking to sow turmoil through the Middle East, Britain has sought to improve ties with Iran, whose proven natural gas reserves are as vast as Russia’s. But it is right that Britain and Iran should have a presence in each other’s countries.

Iran claimed the protests were planned in the British embassy.

While in Tehran, Hammond also met with Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran. “Historic moment in UK-Iran relations”.

In 1980, Britain’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) stormed the Iranian embassy overlooking Hyde Park in London after six gunmen demanding the release of Arab prisoners from the southwestern Khuzestan province took 26 hostages inside.

Britain joins Germany and France in the race of business ties with Iran in the wake of the lifting of sanctions.

In November 2011 a large group of protesters gathered outside the embassy to demand the ambassador be sent home immediately.

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein certainly had a salutary effect on Tehran, which quickly suspended work on the nuclear weapons research programme that had made enormous strides under Khatami’s leadership.

The accord will put restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities to alleviate world’s concerns in return for the removal of global and western sanctions on the country.

That thaw had come about after the June 2013 election in Iran of President Hassan Rouhani, a reputed moderate who had reached out to the West from the early days of his presidency.

Swarms of students penetrated the British facility, tearing down the British flag, burning offices and destroying a painting of 19th century British Queen Victoria.

Hammond was additionally accompanied by a small British commerce delegation to debate potential future commerce alternatives following final month’s nuclear deal, the ministry added.

But the opening did not pass without incident as reporters spotted a “Death to England” slogan still scrawled in paint on a wall at the embassy.