Tehran, (UNI) Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper that allowing the United States to use military bases would be viewed as participation in aggression.
“Such actions will certainly be regarded as participation in aggression and will be recorded in the history of relations between the two countries,” Abbas Araghchi said in a phone call, according to a foreign ministry statement.
During a phone call, Abbas Araghchi told his British counterpart that London should refrain from supporting US-Israeli military action against Iran.
Araghchi criticised the ‘negative and biased approach of Britain’ towards the US-Israeli military action against Iran, as well as the UK’s decision to provide military bases for the US to use.
On March 2, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has granted the US permission for ‘defensive’ action against Iranian missile sites from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
In a post on Telegram, Araghchi said he told Cooper, ‘These actions will definitely be considered as participation in aggression and will be recorded in the history of relations between the two countries.
‘At the same time, we reserve our inherent right to defend the country’s sovereignty and independence.’
The UK has faced repeated criticism from Donald Trump since the war began, and is among countries the US president has recently berated for failing to respond to his request for support in the Strait of Hormuz.
He warned that by providing access to its bases, the United Kingdom shared complicity in aggression against Tehran and in a further escalation of the Middle East crisis.
Commenting on the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Middle East, Araghchi said that tensions could ease if attacks against Iran ceased, but the resolution should be accompanied by guarantees that the conflict will not recur.
Starmer has said that the longer the conflict continues, ‘the bigger the impact on the cost of living’ and said that the best way forward is a negotiated settlement with Iran’.
