Mr. David Cooney:

As I said earlier, we were in a situation in 2011 where we had to close a number of embassies. Our Department could not be exempt from the general cost cutting that was going on and we had to be seen to do something to contribute to that effort. The reason we decided on Tehran at the time was that the embassy had been there for some time but the returns in terms of trade were disappointing. We were in a difficult situation in that we were unable to exploit that representation effectively because of the effect of sanctions. If and as the situation in Iran improves - it is going in the right direction - we would be very keen, if we have the resources, to reopen the embassy.