What his latest assessment is of the political situation in Iran; and if he will make a statement.

The Iranian Government continue to face protests from their own people following the disputed elections in June. The abuse of the human rights of demonstrators has fuelled concern in the country. The Iranian Government's problems are exacerbated by a poor economic situation of their own making. Attempts to blame the United Kingdom for any of the post-election disturbances are not only wrong but an insult to the intelligence of the Iranian people.

I am sure that the Foreign Secretary will accept that Iran is the biggest sponsor of terror against British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq as a result of its supplying explosively formed penetrators to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. If that is the case, what are the British Government trying to do to stop the supply of these weapons and funds to Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza?

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that in a wide range of countries there is evidence of Iranian support for terrorist groups. However, I do not think one should believe that the sum of the problems in Afghanistan is down to the Iranian Government. Iran has a border with Afghanistan, it has to deal with a range of problems that are exported from Afghanistan to Iran and it has a range of links with a variety of groups in Afghanistan. In many of our debates about Afghanistan we have talked about the importance of engagement with its neighbours, but I do not think that that particular neighbour is the primary source of the problem in Afghanistan, however much it has failed to play the sort of constructive role across the country that is important. One final point that should not be forgotten is that in the west of Afghanistan-in provinces such as Herat-the Iranian influence is strong but the situation is relatively peaceful.

In the context of Iran's nuclear power, be it civil or for weapons, have we made any progress in persuading Moscow that an Iranian nuclear weapon would be much more immediately threatening to the Russians than it would be to us in western Europe?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. All the members of the E3 plus 3-the European three plus America, China and Russia-oppose the development of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. All of us support an Iranian civilian nuclear programme, as long as we can be sure that it is not leaking into a military programme. That applies as much to the Russian authorities, for the obvious reasons that he points out, as it does to the other members of the E3 plus 3 and the rest of the United Nations Security Council. After all, on five occasions the Security Council has said to the Iranian regime that it needs to take action to comply with its international obligations and on three occasions it has imposed sanctions towards that end.

Earlier this month, Secretary Clinton said:

"Our goal is to pressure the Iranian Government, without contributing to the suffering of ordinary Iranians".

It thus seems clear that the Obama Administration are not going gung-ho for a new round or an early escalation of major new economic sanctions. Do the Government also see a danger in additional early economic sanctions, in that they might serve to bolster President Ahmadinejad against the growing green movement? Might it be better to push harder with the engagement strategy and limit any future sanctions to targeted, smart sanctions against the main figures of the regime in Tehran?

Nobody is in favour of dumb sanctions; smart sanctions are obviously better than dumb ones. Sanctions need to be properly directed towards the objectives on which they are designed to have an effect. The hon. Gentleman must not misrepresent the American position. The choice that he poses between imposing sanctions and hurting the Iranian people or doing nothing does not appear to be the right approach. There is a wide range of agreement on our need to explore the whole range of sanctions opportunities, because over the past three months Iran has made it clear that it is not willing to have the intensive dialogue with the international community that was called for and it has not given a positive response on the so-called Tehran research reactor deal, which would be one way of building confidence with the international community.

Will the Foreign Secretary be a little clearer on the Government's thinking on the type of sanctions that they wish to see? What weight do the Government put on the views of the Opposition to the Tehran regime when they consider this matter? How does he assess the risk that major new economic sanctions across the board might assist Iran's Supreme Leader and President in resisting the internal opposition that they face?

Tempting as it is to give a public commentary on the sort of sanctions that are being developed, it would not be wise to do so. Let me give the hon. Gentleman one obvious example: when one is considering financial sanctions, it does not make sense to give six, eight or 10 weeks' notice to some of the entities that might be involved of the sort of financial sanctions that might be coming in. For obvious reasons, we have to make this a process that is conducted in private. However, I am telling the hon. Gentleman that we believe that financial sanctions, to take one example, have an important role to play in exerting pressure at the appropriate points in the regime and not affecting the Iranian people.

Is it not true that the Iranian regime rejected a visit of Members of the European Parliament recently for fear that they might meet Opposition politicians in Iran? [ Interruption. ] Will my right hon. Friend extend an invitation to opposition members in Iran to visit Britain to visit him as Foreign Secretary and will he offer the opportunity to Members of this Parliament to meet them?

I did not know about the visit by the European Parliament. In contrast to Philip Davies, I think that it is a good thing that the European Parliament takes an interest. He will also be pleased to know that the EU has imposed tougher sanctions on Iran than those mandated by the UN Security Council. That is one further example of the way in which Europe can play a constructive role.

I know what my right hon. Friend is saying about the importance of understanding the position of the Iranian Opposition. Given the incessant attempts of the Iranian regime to brand the opposition as British or western stooges, we have to be very careful about how we engage with them. It is absolutely clear that this is an indigenous movement led by patriotic Iranians who want to see their society change. It is not the plaything of the international community.

Order. The comprehensiveness of the exchanges is in many ways illuminating and useful to the House, but I must emphasise that there are a lot of questions that we need to get through and that we must make somewhat sharper progress.

Further to the exchange between the Foreign Secretary and Mr. Davey, will the Foreign Secretary agree that smart sanctions that hurt the interests of the Iranian Government but not the ordinary people of Iran might include-these are things that one can talk about in advance-a ban on arms sales to Iran, a tough United Nations weapons shipping inspections regime and action against the interests of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? Will he say whether these are sanctions that the British Government will be in favour of, notwithstanding the objections of the hon. Gentleman on the Bench next door?

In the interests of a short answer, there is already an EU arms embargo that the Government were happy to vote for. That is a pretty clear indication that we consider that to be a worthwhile effort.

I was referring to what might happen at the United Nations. On that matter, does the Foreign Secretary agree that we have now reached a position where stronger sanctions from the UN on Iran are justified and necessary? Is it true that the lack of agreement at the UN Security Council means that there is now little prospect of a further UN resolution on this matter for several months? Do the British Government find that acceptable, and what action will they be taking to try to speed up the process?

Yes and no, Mr. Speaker. If you will permit me to give a slightly longer answer, yes, it is correct that the failure of the Iranian Government to give any kind of positive response to the suggestion of more talks to discuss their nuclear programme or former director general el-Baradei's proposal for a Tehran research reactor means that we have to consider a sanctions package, but, no, it is not right to say that there is no prospect of achieving that for several months. I think that it will take some time, but I do not believe that this can, should or will be punted into the long grass.