At one level, the bulk of his high-stakes talks were with the outer state of the president, Hassan Rouhani, and the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. In his discussions with Rouhani, Johnson was able to play one powerful card – his strong personal defence of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal which is now under pressure from Donald Trump. The Iranians urged Johnson to convey to the US president that the deal was in serious jeopardy. Iran would like to see the UK pay the up to £300m Britain acknowledges it owes Iran for the failure to deliver Chieftain tanks. The UK says it has not found a way of paying that does not fall foul of sanctions.

Source: The Guardian December 10, 2017 19:00 UTC