A British minister voiced his country’s enthusiasm for closer cooperation with Iran. British Minister of State for the Middle East and North Africa Alistair Burt and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed a range of issues at a meeting in Tehran late Friday, Tasnim News Agency reported. The senior British diplomat was in Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony for the reelected President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday. During the talks, Burt expressed London’s willingness to promote cooperation with Tehran. The two ministers discussed the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers, including the UK, and exchanged views on the latest regional developments. Zarif and Burt also called for coordinating efforts to resolve the conflicts in Yemen and address the dire conditions of people in the war-hit Arab country. The British government has been challenged by humanitarian groups that say the weapons sold to Saudi Arabia were being used illegally in the Yemeni civil war. Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been launching airstrikes against the ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement in Yemen to restore power to the fugitive former president, Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. Thousands of Yemenis, including women and children, have lost their lives in the indiscriminate attacks launched by Saudi Arabia on residential areas and civil infrastructure like hospitals.
