Wes Streeting has criticised Donald Trump\u2019s rhetoric on Iran as \u201cincendiary, provocative and outrageous\u201d and called the failure of US-Iran peace talks disappointing but said the success of future negotiations was necessary \u201cin all of our interests\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs ever in diplomacy, you\u2019re failing until you succeed,\u201d the health secretary told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News. \u201cSo while these talks may not have ended in success, that doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t merit in continuing to try.\u201d<\/p>\n
A fragile two-week truce<\/a> announced on Tuesday has been thrown into uncertainty after Washington and Tehran\u2019s 21 hours of negotiations ended without a peace agreement being reached in the early hours of Sunday. The US vice-president, JD Vance, who was in Pakistan for the talks, said Iran\u2019s refusal<\/a> to commit to not building a nuclear weapon was the reason for the lack of a deal.<\/p>\n Keir Starmer urged both sides to \u201cfind a way through\u201d after the failure of the peace talks. The prime minister also called for the ceasefire to continue after a conversation with the sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n Streeting said of the talks: \u201cClearly when you look at the impact of the war in Iran on this country, on other countries around the world who have no part in this war, it is in all of our interests for there to be a breakthrough and an end to this war.\u201d<\/p>\n He acknowledged it had been a \u201cdifficult few months\u201d for the relationship between the UK and the US. He said disagreements over the Iran war, Greenland and the Chagos Islands, as well as Trump\u2019s unbridled criticism of the UK\u2019s defensive capabilities and personal criticism of Starmer, had \u201cundoubtedly strained\u201d UK-US relations.<\/p>\n But he added: \u201cOn so many other things, our interests as the UK and the US are intertwined. We are old and close friends and we\u2019ve got a shared outlook as democratic countries and we\u2019ve got shared security interests.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about the rhetoric used by Trump, who last week warned Iran that a \u201cwhole civilisation will die\u201d if it did not meet his demands, Streeting said many people would have gone to bed \u201cwondering what on earth would happen overnight\u201d.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cOver the course of the last week, President Trump has said some pretty bold \u2013 in Yes Minister language \u2013 incendiary, provocative, outrageous things on social media. I think we\u2019ve all come to learn that you judge President Trump through what he does, not just what he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe point I\u2019m making is you have to distinguish between some of the rhetoric, which people might find shocking, and then the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Britain is to host further talks with a coalition of countries about reopening the strait of Hormuz shipping lanes next week. The meeting comes after Starmer spoke to Trump about the need for a \u201cpractical plan\u201d to get ships going through the area, and said he was \u201cfed up\u201d<\/a> with the effect that Trump\u2019s actions in the Middle East were having on the British public.<\/p>\n Rachel Reeves said again on Sunday that the war in Iran would \u201ccome at a cost to British families and businesses\u201d. Writing in the Sunday Times, the chancellor said<\/a>: \u201cThese are not costs I wanted, but they are costs we will have to respond to. As chancellor, I have vowed that my economic approach to this crisis will be both responsive to a changing world and responsible in the national interest.\u201d<\/p>\n Streeting praised Starmer\u2019s \u201cgrit and guts\u201d in declining to support initial US-Israeli strikes on Iran. \u201cThere are few former British prime ministers alive today who would have made the same judgment call that Keir made on not joining the war in Iran,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n