CRI听力:Iran, Britain Reopen Embassies after a 4-year Impasse

Reporter:

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has overseen the raising of the British flag at the embassy in Teheran on Sunday, almost four years after Iran expelled the UK's ambassador in retaliation for sanctions over its nuclear program.

The diplomatic reprochment is part of the nuclear agreement Iran signed on to last month in in Vienna.

Hammond is the first British Foreign Secretary to visit Iran in almost 12-years.

He says the re-opening of the embassy in Tehran is one of a number of steps the UK goverment will be taking to try to regain trust with Iran.

"We have to start slowly and carefully and build a relationship and see how far we can go. There's a big deficit of trust at the moment and there are major issues on which we have fundamental differences of view. But the symbolic importance of deciding to reopen embassies in each others' countries is that we've chosen to talk to each other about those differences."

The UK embassy in Tehran was closed in 2011 after protesters stormed the embassy compound - smashing windows, torching cars and burning flags.

The protests, which the UK government says it believes were backed by the Iranian government, came after the UK announced a series of sanctions on Iran connected to its nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the re-opening of the British embassy should help benefit Iran.

"Iran has been prepared to engage with all its neighbours without excluding anyone. We believe that exclusion should not be the practice in our region, we believe that all of us face the same challenges, all of us have similar opportunities to improve the living standards of the people of this region."

In re-opening the embassy in Tehran, spcialists are working to clean up the building, which involves removing graffiti, including some above a portrait of the Queen which says "Death to England."

Initially, the British embassy will be headed by a charge d'affaires.

An agreement on upgrading to full ambassador status is expected to be reached in the coming months.

A British trade delegation has also traveled to Tehran to discuss future trade opportunities.

UK banks have been keen on doing business with Teheran again after Iran was frozen out of the global financial system as part of the sanctions.

Meanwhile, in London, former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has attended the re-opening of the Iranian embassy.

"It's a very important day in terms of relations between Iran and the United Kingdom for all sorts of historical reasons which go right back to the 19th century. Relations have always been quite difficult and they reached a further nadir in November 2011 with the invasion of our embassy in Tehran, but this is really good news, it's a good day and of course it builds on the agreement which was made between the P5 plus 1 and the Islamic Republic back in July."

The thaw between Britain and Iran first began with the election victory of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013.

UK Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond is due to meet with him later today.

For CRI, I'm Poornima Weerasekara.