Speaker Ali Larijani is still not allowing a bill to sever ties with the United Kingdom to come to a vote in the Majlis.
At least one member of the Majlis, Deputy Mohammad-Javad Abtahi, sought last week to move the stalled legislation to the front of the legislative queue. “No delay should be seen in dealing with the bill,” Abtahi said last week, citing the statement by UK Foreign Secretary William Hague charging Iran with helping suppress the uprising in Syria.
Abtahi demanded that the bill be brought to the floor for a vote immediately.
Larijani promised publicly in January that the Majlis would definitely take up the bill to sever diplomatic relations with Great Britain—but he did not say when. And four months later, he has yet to bring it to the floor.
The Majlis National Security Committee voted in December to end relations in order to punish Britain for interfering in Iran.
It is thought that Larijani does not approve of the legislation, but large numbers of Majlis deputies clearly want to show their might by cutting ties.
Former Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was strongly opposed to severing relations and tried to buy off the Majlis with vague assurances that he would lessen ties and restrict relations. The new foreign minister, Ali-Akbar Salehi, has said nothing about ties to Britain in public.
The issue was pushed to the front burner late in 2009 when police arrested some Iranians employed by the UK embassy and accused them of fomenting the post-election disorders on orders from London.
Interest faded as the months wore on and Mottaki stalled, but it was revived this past December when British Ambassador Simon Gass criticized Iran’s human rights record in a posting on the embassy website. Within weeks, the committee voted to end all ties.
Iran charged that Gass’s commentary amounted to interference in Iran’s domestic affairs. The fact that the Islamic Republic often makes critical remarks about other countries domestic policies had no impact on the debate.
Many in Iran also took it as an affront to the country when Queen Elizabeth II included Gass in her New Year’s Honors List. Numerous personal attacks on the queen appeared in print, although the monarch has nothing to do with selecting names for the honors list.
Gass moved on to another posting in Afghanistan in April. Britain has not yet nominated a replacement and is not expected to do so while the Majlis is stewing over relations at any level.
