British policy is to engage with Iran, says minister

Islamic Republic News Agency:

Foreign Office Minister Lord Triesman has reiterated that British policy is to maintain diplomatic contacts with Iran to address "serious concerns" on a wide range of subjects.

"We do not underestimate the difficulty in making progress, but these issues are too important for us to ignore. Our policy is to bring our concerns to Iran's attention, engage Iran in discussion and look for solutions," he said.

The minister was replying to questions during a brief debate in the House of Lords Wednesday asking what representations the UK government plans to make in the immediate future to the government of Iran.

With regard to Iran's nuclear program, Triesman confirmed that Britain was still seeking support in the UN Security Council even though there had been only limited success.

"That is not an easy matter and not everybody cooperates with it, but that seems to us to be the right perspective, which we should pursue," he told his fellow peers.

The Foreign Office minister rejected a call by Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Alton, who is a leading supporter to the Muhajedin-e Khalq (MKO), to deproscribe the group from Britain's outlawed terrorist organizations.

Triesman said that the "evidence is compelling" about the sequence of events that led the UK to proscribe the MKO as a terrorist group under the country's Terrorism Act 2000. READ MORE