UK should finally acknowledge role in 1953 Iran coup, says David Owen

Lord David Owen said admitting the UK’s role would make reforms in Iran today ‘a little more likely’. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

The UK should finally acknowledge its leading role in the 1953 coup that toppled Iran’s last democratically elected leader, for the sake of Britain’s credibility and the Iranian reform movement, a former foreign secretary has said.

The US formally admitted its role 10 years ago with the declassification of a large volume of intelligence documents, which made clear that the ousting of the elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosadegh, 70 years ago this week was a joint CIA-MI6 endeavour. The formal UK government position is to refuse to comment on an intelligence matter.