\n<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer has warned of a \u201crisk of escalation\u201d in the Middle East and beyond as a result of the US bombing of Iran, but said he backed the strike on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities and called on Tehran to return to negotiations.<\/p>\n
The prime minister, who was quick to clarify that the UK had not been involved in the strikes, held talks with France\u2019s president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on Sunday afternoon after convening a Cobra meeting in the aftermath of the US attack.<\/p>\n
The US made no request for any UK assistance in the bombing of the three nuclear sites, the Guardian understands, including any use of the leased Diego Garcia base in the Chagos Islands, the recent subject of a controversial deal with Mauritius.<\/p>\n
In a joint statement, the three European leaders said it was \u201cclear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and can no longer pose a threat to regional security\u201d. They said their joint aim was to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and called on Tehran to address all concerns associated with the nuclear programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe stand ready to contribute to that goal in coordination with all parties,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe urge Iran not to take any further action that could destabilise the region. We will continue our joint diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions and ensure the conflict does not intensify and spread further.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starmer warned earlier that it was possible the fallout from the conflict could reverberate beyond the region. \u201cIt is important that we now de-escalate the situation, stabilise the region and get the parties back around the table to negotiate,\u201d he told broadcasters.<\/p>\n
Flights from London to Dubai and Doha were cancelled after a British Airways flight from Heathrow to Dubai was forced to divert to Zurich on Saturday night. Israel announced on Sunday that it had closed its airspace to inbound and outbound flights.<\/p>\n
After Starmer spoke earlier on Sunday with the sultan of Oman and the king of Jordan, No 10 said the leaders agreed that \u201cescalation of the conflict is in no one\u2019s interests\u201d.<\/p>\n
The US decision to join Israel\u2019s offensive against Iran came after western leaders, including Starmer, had urged restraint. They are due to meet again on Tuesday at the Nato summit in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
As recently as last Tuesday at the G7 summit, which Trump left early, Starmer said he did not have any indication the US was planning on joining the attack, though later in the week he had warned of a \u201creal risk of escalation\u201d in the conflict, adding there had been several rounds of discussions with Washington and \u201cthat, to me, is the way to resolve this issue\u201d.<\/p>\n
Map showing location of Iranian nuclear facilities hit by US strikes<\/p>\n
The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told Sky News that while the UK had preferred a different path, the outcome was in British interests. \u201cWe support the prevention of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. We had proposed a diplomatic course of action, as other European countries had done; the Iranians had rejected that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know people will be waking up this morning and they\u2019ll be worried. They\u2019ll want to know what this means, and I do want to give them reassurance that whilst the British government has not been involved in these attacks, we have been making extensive preparations for all eventualities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reynolds said the British people should be in no doubt that the Iranian regime did pose a threat to the UK, but that regime change in Tehran was \u201cnot the question\u201d when it came to these strikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted a different way to obtain this, but I cannot pretend to you that the prevention of Iran having a nuclear weapon is anything other than [in] the interests of this country,\u201d Reynolds told the BBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is very different to what we saw with the invasion of Iraq \u2026 I think stability for the region would come about through an agreement where Iran would acknowledge that, because of its behaviour, no country in that theatre or the wider world would be able to countenance it having nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the threat from Iran was \u201can active one \u2026 This is at the forefront of risks to the United Kingdom and our security apparatus has to do a great deal to keep the country safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
The chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, said the strikes were a \u201cbig mistake\u201d. She told the BBC: \u201cThe concern is it will just become a wider conflict, and we are at a very dangerous moment. The war aim is supposed to be to stop the Iranians building a bomb, but this isn\u2019t the way to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt best, it can slow down the Iranians. The way to stop them building a bomb is negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour and opposition MPs are likely to raise concerns in parliament when they return on Monday afternoon. The Green party co-leader, Adrian Ramsay, <\/strong>said: \u201cWe utterly condemn the reckless attacks on Iran by the United States that can only lead to further dangerous conflict in an already volatile region.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no international legal basis for this unilateral action that poses a serious threat to international peace and security.\u201d<\/p>\n The foreign secretary, David Lammy, had urged the US to pull back from the brink on a visit to Washington for talks with his counterpart, Marco Rubio, before attending talks with Iran on Friday alongside European allies in Geneva.<\/p>\n The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said the US strike was \u201cdecisive action against a regime that fuels global terror and directly threatens the UK. Iranian operatives have plotted murders and attacks on British soil. We should stand firmly with the US and Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n Overnight, Iran launched a ballistic missile barrage against Israel in retaliation against the US action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Keir Starmer has warned of a \u201crisk of escalation\u201d in the Middle East and beyond as a result of the US bombing of Iran, but said he backed the strike on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities and called on Tehran to return to negotiations. The prime minister, who was quick to clarify that the UK had not<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1348,1351,258,84,1346,328,736,1347,1349,1060,1350],"class_list":{"0":"post-9274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-backs","9":"tag-escalation","10":"tag-foreign","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-keir","13":"tag-policy","14":"tag-risk","15":"tag-starmer","16":"tag-strike","17":"tag-warns","18":"tag-wider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}