A deadline is looming on critical nuclear talks with Iran, and former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has used a lecture at the University of South Wales to make a plea for the establishment of normal relations with the country, the Welshonline said in an article.

The former Labor cabinet minister said, “I hope and pray that there will be a deal. If there is it will owe much to the courage and vision of both U.S. President Barack Obama, and of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.”

He said a “good deal” could lead to a “rebalancing” of the crisis-wracked Middle East. But he warned “no deal” would have “profound consequences”.

---------- ‘It won’t go away’

Full diplomatic relations between the UK and Iran have yet to be restored after the British embassy in Tehran was closed in 2011.

Pressing for action to pull Iran back into the international community, he said: “Iran is too big, too strategically placed to be sidelined. It won’t go away. “It’s time for a fresh start,” he added.

----------- Double standards

Contrasting the UK’s attitude to Iran with its stances to other countries, he said: “[We] should reflect on the fact that when it comes to dealing with Saudi Arabia, for example, we pull our punches, even though the world has faced plenty of problems which have emanated from their territory – extreme Wahhabism, and its morphing into jihadism being two.”

Mr. Straw described President George W. Bush’s description of Iran as part of an “axis of evil” in his 2002 State of the Union speech as “the most serious foreign policy error of his term of office”.

He says that Iran cannot be compared to North Korea, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or pre-2003 Libya.

----------- ‘Iran is by no means dictatorship’

He said: “There has been significant, if largely unacknowledged cooperation between Iran, the U.S. and others to seek to end the dominance of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ [in Iraq and the Levant, ISIL] terrorists from Iraq and Syria.... [In] a region of extraordinary turbulence, Iran is a stable, and advancing country, with elements of democracy which have themselves strengthened in recent years.

“If there is a deal at the end of this month, could Iran move from being seen by many in a pejorative light, to a more active partner with the West? I think so.”

Attacking stereotypes of the country, he insisted that “modern Iran is by no means a one-person dictatorship”.

He said: “It’s a theocracy with a democratic structure underneath, with an elected executive president, and a parliament, the Majlis. Fourteen of its 290 seats are reserved for religious minorities including Zoroastrians, Christians, and Jews.

------- Britain’s ‘interesting choice’

Mr. Straw admitted it will be “years” before the type of rapprochement that is taking place between the United States and Cuba will be possible but said: “[There] would be great benefits not least for the UK, and Iran, from a normalization of relations, for a full re-opening of our embassy, and a resumption of trade, education, and cultural interactions on a significant scale.”

If nuclear talks fail to produce a deal, he said, China, Russia and India will move to strengthen links and the “UK will then be posed with an interesting choice” about where its best interests should lie.

---------- U.S. still selling Coca-Cola

Arguing that Iran is a “good opportunity for us to develop an explicit and distinctive foreign policy,” he said: “We should encourage trade relations with Iran... [It] is striking that of all major Western countries the United Kingdom is the only one to have adopted a unilateral policy of discouraging trade which is otherwise allowed under the sanctions’ regime.

“U.S. exports to Iran have grown significantly, whilst UK exports have slumped. Boeing has resumed aircraft sales; Coca-Cola has never stopped its Iran franchise.”