Iranian, British foreign ministers meet

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 16 (MNA) - The foreign ministers of Britain and Iran conferred on the sidelines of a security conference in the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday. It was the highest-level contact between the two nations since relations were nearly severed after students in Tehran stormed the British Embassy in Tehran in November last year. British Foreign Secretary William Hague and his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, held talks on the Syria conflict, Iranians living in Britain and the nuclear talks between Iran and the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) in Moscow on June 18-19. Britain’s Foreign Office said that Hague spoke to Salehi about the embassy assault and that both men expressed hope that their countries “could move soon to confirm the appointment of formal protecting powers in each other’s capitals” — a reference to the appointment of third countries to look after Iranian interests in Britain and vice versa.