Iran–United Kingdom relations

. "Eternal Iran". Palgrave 2005 ISBN 1-4039-6276-6, p.25]

Since then, mutual relations have often been turbulent at times and better at others.

History of Irano-British relations

Safavid era

In the year 1553, King Edward VI of Britain hired the wealthy merchant and explorer, Sebastian Cabot to develop a profitable trading company. He was given two ships that sailed towards the port city of Arkhangelsk. The captain of one of those ships was Cpt. Richard Chancellor, who successfully reached the northern city. From there, Sebastian Cabot and his envoy traveled towards the Russian city of [Moscow] with a business proposition for the Grand Duke Ivan IV the Terrible. When it was accepted, the Moscow Trading Company came into existence.

South of the Moscow Trading Company Headquarters was the rich, wealthy realm of the Safavid Empire. The company started sending envoys during the reign of Shah Tahmasp I during the first years in business. Anthony Jenkinson was one of the first leaders of these envoys. In total, there were six visits and the last one was in June 1579 during the reign of Shah Mohammad Khodabandeh led my Arthur Edwards. But at the time the company's envoys reached the royal court in Qazvin, the Shah was busy protecting his borders from Osmani (Ottoman) attacks. In order to attain the wealth of the country, the company penetrated successfully into the bazaars and dispatched more envoys.

In 1597, as Abbas I of Safavid sought to strengthen his dominance in eastern Khorasan against rebellious Uzbeks, he received Robert Shirley, Anthony Shirley, and a group of 26 British envoys in Qazvin. The British delegation sought to convert Persia into a British ally against the Ottoman threat. Shah Abbas warmly received the delegation and took them as his guests with him to Isfahan, his new capital.

Soon, the Shirley brothers were appointed by the Shah to organize the royal cavalry and train the army. Many events followed, including the debut of the British East India Company into Persia, and establishment of trade routes for silk though Jask in the Strait of Hormuz in 1616. It was from here where the likes of Sir John Malcolm later gained influence into the Qajarid throne.

Qajar era

Irano-British relations picked up momentum as a weakened Safavid empire eventually gave way to the Qajarid dynasty, which was quickly absorbed into domestic turmoil and rivalry, while competing colonial powers rapidly sought a stable foothold in the region. While the Portuguese, British, and Dutch, competed for the south and southeast of Persia in the Persian Gulf, Imperial Russia was largely left unchallenged in the north as it plunged southward to establish dominance in Persia's northern territories.

Plagued with internal politics and incompetency, the Qajarid government found itself incapable of rising to the numerous complex foreign political challenges at the doorsteps of Persia. During the monarchy of Fath Ali Shah, Sir John Malcolm, Sir Harford Jones-Brydges, Allen Lindsay, Henry Eldred Curwen Pottinger, Charles Christie, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Harold Nicolson, Sir Anthony Eden, Sir John McNeill, Edmund Ironside, and James Morier were some of the British elite closely involved with Persian politics. Allen Lindsay was even appointed as a general in Abbas Mirza's army.

A weakened and bankrupted royal court under Fath Ali Shah was forced to sign the notorious Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, followed by the Treaty of Turkmenchay after efforts by Abbas Mirza failed to secure Persia's northern front against Imperial Russia. The treaties were prepared by the notoriousFact|date=September 2007 Sir Gore Ouseley with the aid of the British Foreign Office in London. Sir Gore Ouseley was the younger brother of the British orientalist William Ouseley, who served as secretary to the British ambassador in Persia.

In fact, Iran's current southern and eastern boundaries were determined by none other than the British during the Anglo-Persian War (1856 to 1857). After defeating Nasereddin Shah in Herat in 1857, the British government assigned Frederic John Goldsmid of the Indo-European Telegraph Department to determine the borders between Persia and India during the 1860s. [Frederic John Goldsmid's "Eastern Persia: An account of the journeys of the Persian Boundary Commission. 1870–1871–1872." London. Macmillan and Co. 1876.]

In 1872, the Shah signed an agreement with Baron Julius de Reuter, which George Nathaniel Curzon (who was one of the greatest statesman of his day) called:

:"The most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that have ever been dreamed of..." [George Nathaniel Curzon. "Persia and the Persian question". Vol.I London. Frank Cass and Co. Ltd. 1966. p.480]

The Reuter Concession was immediately denounced by all ranks of businessmen, clergy, and nationalists of Persia, and the concession was quickly forced into cancellation.

Similarly, the "Tobacco fatwa", decreed by Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi was an incident which raised popular resentment against the British presence in Persia in lieu of a diplomatically decapitated and apathetic Qajar throne. Concessions such as this and the 70 year contract of Persian railways to be operated by British businessmen such as Baron de Reuter became increasingly visible. The visibility became particularly pronounced after the discovery of oil in Masjed Soleiman in 1909 and the establishment of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the "D'Arcy Concession".

By the end of the 19th century, Britain's dominance became so pronounced that Khuzestan, Bushehr, and a host of other cities in southern Persia were occupied by Great Britain, and the central government in Tehran was left with no power to even select its own ministers without the approval of the Anglo-Russian consulates. Morgan Shuster, for example, had to resign under tremendous British and Russian pressure on the royal court. Shuster's book "The Strangling of Persia" is a recount of the details of these events, a harsh criticism of Britain and Imperial Russia.

Pahlavi era

One result of the public outcry against the inability of the Persian throne to maintain its political and economic independence against Great Britain and Imperial Russia in the face of events such as the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 and "the 1919 treaty" was the Persian Constitutional Revolution which eventually resulted in the fall of the Qajar dynasty.

The great tremor of the Persian political landscape occurred when the involvement of General Edmund Ironside eventually led to the rise of Reza Pahlavi in the 1920s. The popular view that the British were involved in the 1921 coup was noted as early as March 1921 by the American embassy and relayed to the Iran desk at the Foreign Office [Zirinsky M.P. "Imperial Power and dictatorship: Britain and the rise of Reza Shah 1921–1926". "International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies". 24, 1992. p.646.] A British Embassy report from 1932 concedes that the British put Reza Shah "on the throne" [Sources:
*FO 371 16077 E2844 dated 8 June 1932.
*The Memoirs of Anthony Eden are also explicit about Britain's role in putting Reza Khan in power.
*Ansari, Ali M. "Modern Iran since 1921". Longman. 2003 ISBN 0-582-35685-7 p.26–31.] .

After his establishing of power and strengthening of the central government, Reza Khan quickly put an end to the autonomous activities of the British backed Sheikh Khazal in the south. London withdrew its support of Khaz'al in favor of Reza Pahlavi. However, Reza Pahlavi was removed from power just as quickly during the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran during World War II.

A novel chapter in Anglo-Iranian relations had begun when Iran cancelled its capitulation agreements with foreign powers in 1928. Iran's success in revoking the capitulation treaties, and the failure of the Anglo-Iranian Agreement of 1919 earlier, led to intense diplomatic efforts by the British government to regularize relations between the two countries on a treaty basis. On the Iranian side negotiations on the widest range of issues were conducted by Abdolhossein Teymourtash, the Minister of Court from 1925–1932, and Iran's nominal Minister of Foreign Affairs during the period.

The ire of the British Government was raised, however, by Persian diplomatic claims to the oil rich regions of the Greater and Lesser Tunbs islands, Abu Musa and Bahrain in the Persian Gulf region. On the economic front, on the other hand, Iran's pressures to rescind the monopoly rights of the British-owned Imperial Bank of Persia to issue banknotes in Iran, the Iranian Trade Monopoly Law of 1928, and prohibitions whereby the British Government and Anglo-Persian Oil Company ("APOC") were no longer permitted to enter into direct agreements with their client tribes, as had been the case in the past, did little to satisfy British expectations. The cumulative impact of these demands on the British Government was well expressed by Sir Robert Clive, Britain's Minister to Tehran, who in 1931 noted in a report to the Foreign Office "There are indications, indeed that their present policy is to see how far they can push us in the way of concessions, and I feel we shall never re-establish our waning prestige or even be able to treat the Persian government on equal terms, until we are in a position to call a halt".

Despite the enormous volume of correspondence and protracted negotiations that took place between the two countries on the widest array of issues, on the Iranian side Teymourtash conducted these negotiations single-handedly “without so much as a secretary to keep his papers in order”, according to one scholar. Resolution of all outstanding differences eluded a speedy resolution, however, given the reality that on the British side progress proved tedious due to the need to consult many government departments with differing interests and jurisdictions.

The most intractable challenge, however, proved to be Iran's assiduous efforts to revise the terms whereby the APOC retained near monopoly control over the oil industry in Iran as a result of the concession granted to William Knox D'Arcy in 1901 by the Qajar King of the period. "What Persians felt", Teymourtash would explain to his British counterparts in 1928, "was that an industry had been developed on their own soil in which they had no real share".

Complicating matters further, and ensuring that such demands would in due course set Iran on a collision course with the British Government was the reality that pursuant to a 1914 Act of the British Parliament, an initiative championed by Winston Churchill in his capacity as First Lord of the Admiralty, led the British Government to be granted a majority fifty-three percent ownership of the shares of APOC. The decision was adopted during World War I to ensure the British Government would gain a critical foothold in Iranian affairs so as to protect the flow of oil Iran from Iran due to its critical importance to the operation of the Royal Navy during the war effort. By the 1920s APOC's extensive installations and pipelines in Khuzestan and its refinery in Abadan meant that the company's operations in Iran had led to the creation of the greatest industrial complex in the Middle East.

The attempt to revise the terms of the oil concession on a more favourable basis for Iran led to protracted negotiations that took place in Tehran, Lausanne, London and Paris between Teymourtash and the Chairman of APOC, Sir John Cadman, spanning the years from 1928 to 1932. The overarching argument for revisiting the terms of the D'Arcy Agreement on the Iranian side was that its national wealth was being squandered by a concession that was granted in 1901 by a previous non-constitutional government forced to agree to inequitable terms under duress.

However, despite much progress, Reza Shah Pahlavi was soon to assert his authority by dramatically inserting himself in to the negotiations. The Monarch attended a meeting of the Council of Ministers in November 1932, and after publicly rebuking Teymourtash for his failure to secure an agreement, dictated a letter to cabinet cancelling the D'Arcy Agreement. The Iranian Government notified APOC that it would cease further negotiations and demanded cancellation of the D'Arcy concession. Rejecting the cancellation, the British government espoused the claim on behalf of APOC and brought the dispute before the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague, asserting that it regarded itself "as entitled to take all such measures as the situation may demand for the Company's protection." At this point, Hassan Taqizadeh, the new Iranian minister to have been entrusted the task of assuming responsibility for the oil dossier, was to intimate to the British that the cancellation was simply meant to expedite negotiations and that it would constitute political suicide for Iran to withdraw from negotiations.

Iranians nationalized the oil under the leadership of democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. This caused a lot of tension between Iran and UK.

According to the book "All the Shah's Men", the British tried to convince Harry S. Truman to join their campaign against Iran. However it was only when Dwight Eisenhower became the president that British succeeded in convincing U.S. to join their plot. In order to convince the Eisenhower administration Woodhouse shaped his appeal around the rhetoric of anti-communism. They pointed out the Tudeh party could take control of Iran. Eventually British and CIA created a plan code named Operation Ajax to overthrow the democratically elected Mosaddegh. The coup was performed by Central Intelligence Agency field commander Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. (grandson of Theodore Roosevelt).

After the coup, scores of Iranian political activists from National and Communist parties were jailed or killed. This coup only added to the deep mistrust towards British in Iran (which already existed). It has been very common in Iranian culture to mistrust British government. This fact is well documented in Iranian literature. A good example is the character of Uncle in the television show "My Uncle Napoleon".

The end of World War II brought the start of American dominance in Iran's political arena, and with an anti-Soviet Cold War brewing, the United States quickly moved to convert Iran into an anti-communist block, thus considerably diminishing Britain's influence on Iran for years to come. Operation Ajax and the fall of Prime Minister Mosaddegh was perhaps the last of the large British involvements in Iranian politics in the Pahlavi era.

The Islamic Republic

After the Revolution of Iran in 1979, Britain suspended all diplomatic relations with Iran. Britain did not have an embassy until it was reopened in 1988.

During the Iran-Iraq war, the British supplied Saddam Hussein with military technology and hardware. The infamous supergun of Project Babylon is a prime example that comes to mind in this regard. All of the required metal tubes for the barrels were purchased from firms in the United Kingdom. All were intercepted by customs and exise and none ever reached Iraq. The suppliers were under the impression that they tubes would have been used in a pipeline project. Nonetheless, the Arms-to-Iraq affair is thought to have been an element in John Major's defeat by Tony Blair.

A year after the re-establishment of the British embassy in Tehran, Ayatollah Khomeini issued the infamous Rushdie fatwa, ordering Muslims across the world to kill British author Salman Rushdie. Diplomatic ties with London were broken off only to be resumed at a charge d'affaires level in 1990.

Relations normalised in 1998 during President Mohammad Khatami's reformist administration, and Jack Straw became the first high ranking British politician to visit Tehran in 2001 since the revolution.

Relations suffered a setback in 2002 when David Reddaway was rejected by Tehran as London's ambassador, on charges of being a spy, and further deteriorated when Iran seized eight British sailors after their vessel possibly strayed into Iranian waters near the border with Iraq. They were released later.

A street next to the British embassy in Tehran is named after Bobby Sands, a Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer who died while on hunger strike in a British prison. [ [http://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2008/09/iran-ahmadinejad-government "Inside Iran", Maziar Bahari, Published 11 September 2008] ]

Current relations

Trade

The first Persian Ambassador to The United Kingdom was Mirza Albohassan Khan Ilchi Kabir.The "Herald Tribune" on 22 January 2006 reported a rise in British exports to Iran from £296 million in 2000 to £443.8 million in 2004. A spokesperson for "UK Trade and Investment" was quoted saying that "Iran has become more attractive because it now pursues a more liberal economic policy". [http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/22/news/allies.php Hint of Iran sanctions tugs at trade ties] , Judy Dempsey, 22 January 2006, International Herald Tribune]

Political tension

However, the rigidity of Tehran-London ties remains to be seen as Iran's new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has put forth a hardline government in power, in line with the revolutionary ideals of Ayatollah Khomeini .

The confrontation between the United States-European Union pact on one side and Iran on the other over Iran's nuclear program also continues to develop, remaining a serious obstacle in the improvement of Tehran-London ties.

A by UK diplomat John Sawers to French, German and US diplomats, dated 16 March 2006, twice referred to the intention to have the United Nations Security Council refer to Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter in order to put pressure on Iran. Chapter VII describes the Security Council's power to authorize economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions, as well as the use of military force, to resolve disputes.

The "Sunday Telegraph" reported that a secret, high-level meeting would take place on 3 April 2006 between the UK government and military chiefs regarding plans to attack Iran. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/02/wiran02.xml Government in secret talks about strike against Iran] , Sean Rayment, Sunday Telegraph, 2 April 2006] The Telegraph cited "a senior Foreign Office source" saying that "The belief in some areas of Whitehall is that an attack is now all but inevitable. There will be no invasion of Iran but the nuclear sites will be destroyed." The BBC reported a denial that the meeting would take place, but no denial of the alleged themes of the meeting, by the UK Ministry of Defence, and that "there is well sourced and persistent speculation that American covert activities aimed at Iran are already underway" [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4869094.stm MoD denies Iran military meeting] , BBC, 2 April 2006] .

2007 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel

On 23 March 2007 fifteen Royal Navy personnel were seized by the naval forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for allegedly having strayed into Iranian waters. Eight sailors and seven Royal Marines on two boats from HMS "Cornwall" were detained at 10:30 local time by six Guard boats of the IRGC Navy. They were subsequently taken to Tehran. Iran reported that the sailors are well. About 200 students targeted the British Embassy on 1 April 2007 calling for the expulsion of the country's ambassador because of the standoff over Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines. The protesters chanted "Death to Britain" and "Death to America". [http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-04/01/content_841136.htm Protest in Iran targets British Embassy] , China Daily, 1 April 2007] Speculation on the Iranians' motivations for this action ran rampant; with the Iranians under tremendous pressure on a number of fronts from the United States, the Revolutionary Guard Corps could have been responding to any one of a number of perceived threats.

On 3 April 2007, Prime Minister Tony Blair advised that "the next 48 hours will be critical" in defusing the crisis. At approximately 1:20 PM GMT, Iran's president announced that the 8 sailors would be 'pardoned'. The following day, he announced all 15 British personnel would be released immediately "in celebration of the Prophet's birthday and Easter."After the soldiers return channel 5 news released an interview they had filmed just prior to the soldiers capture. In it, Captain Chris Air, the most senior of the captured men, admitted that one of the patrol's responsibilities was to obtain intelligence on Iran. The videos release was blocked by the MOD until the soldiers release for fear that it could compromise the soldiers position. [ [http://news.five.tv/features_story.asp?id=393&fid=154] ]

Arms sales

Despite the political pressure and sanctions, a probe by customs officers suggests that at least seven British arms dealers have been supplying the Iranian air force, its elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the country's controversial nuclear ambitions. A UK businessman was caught smuggling components for use in guided missiles through a front company that proved to be the Iranian Ministry of Defence. Another case involves a group that included several Britons which, investigators alleged, attempted to export components intended to enhance the performance of Iranian aircraft. Other examples involve a British millionaire arms dealer caught trading machine-guns used by the SAS and capable of firing 800 rounds a minute with a Tehran-based weapons supplier. [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/20/armstrade.iran British dealers supply arms to Iran] ]

Gholhak

In 2006 a dispute about the ownership of a substantial (and exceedingly valuable) compound in Gholhak in Northern Tehran was raised in the Iranian Parliament when 162 MPs wrote to the speaker. The British Embassy have occupied the site since at least 1934 and assert that they have legal ownership. In 2007 the issue was raised again when a group of MPs claimed that the ownership papers for the site were unlawful under the laws extant in 1934. In July 2007 a conference was held to discuss the ownership of the compound but was not attended by the British side.

Asylum

Britain said 14 March 2008 it will reconsider the asylum application of a gay Iranian teenager who claims he will be persecuted if he is returned home. He had fled to the Netherlands and sought asylum therendash but the government turned him down, saying the case should be dealt with in Britain, where he first applied. [http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/14/iran.asylum/index.html Gay Iranian given hope by the UK's U-turn] , CNN, 14 March 2008] .

Further reading

* Kazemzadeh Firuz, "Russia and Britain in Persia 1864-1914, A study in Imperialism", 1968, Yale University Press.
* Morgan Shuster, "The Strangling of Persia: Story of the European Diplomacy and Oriental Intrigue That Resulted in the Denationalization of Twelve Million Mohammedans". ISBN 0-934211-06-X
* Ingram, Edward. "Britain’s Persian Connection 1798-1828: Prelude to the Great Game in Asia". 1993. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820243-1
* Bonakdarian, Mansour. "BRITAIN AND THE IRANIAN CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION 1906-1911". Syracuse University Press in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation. 2006. ISBN 0-8156-3042-5

See also

* Foreign relations of Iran
* Foreign relations of the United Kingdom
* Iran-China relations
* Iran-US relations
* Iran-Russia relations
* Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran
* Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907
* Imperial Bank of Persia, a British owned bank established in 1889.
* 2007 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel
* Doris Lessing

References

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3077540.stm Iran-UK relation timeline: BBC]
* [http://www.bicc.org.uk/ The British-Iranian Chamber of Commerce]
* [http://www.iransoc.dircon.co.uk/ The Iran Society of London]
* [http://www.ibchamber.org/ The Irano-British Chamber of Commerce]
* [http://www.iran-embassy.org.uk/ Iran's Embassy in London]
* [http://www.britishembassy.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1017170895239 The British Embassy in Tehran]