UK foreign secretary wants Iran to return to negotiating table but refuses to endorse strikes by US and Israel
Any Iranian move to close the strait of Hormuz waterway would be an act of monumental self-harm, said David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary, as he continued to refuse to endorse the Israeli and American strikes on Iran, or lay out the UK view of their lawfulness.
Lammy said there was no need for the British government to say if the strikes were legal since the UK was not involved in the action and had not been asked by the US to take part, or to allow the US to use the UK’s Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean to target Iran.
The US used B-2 stealth bombers and a salvo of submarine-launched missiles to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday night.
Lammy denied that the US was involved in regime change, saying the attacks were very targeted. No assessment had yet been completed on the effectiveness of the US attacks, he added, raising questions over whether Iran has moved its enriched uranium to a new site.
Lammy, in an hour-long statement to the Commons, also disclosed an RAF plane had evacuated 63 British nationals and their dependents to Cyprus from Israel. He said negotiations were under way to help the 4,000 British nationals in Israel that had registered with the Foreign Office.
Referring to the Iranian parliament’s decision to vote for the closure of the strait of Hormuz, he said contingency plans were in place.
He told MPs: “Be in no doubt we are prepared to defend our personnel, our assets and those of our allies and partners. We are closely monitoring how energy markets are responding to the conflict.
