Defence Secretary John Healey has stressed that the Government does not believe Iran has any plans to attack the UK, but declined to rule out that the country has the capability to do so.
Asked repeatedly on Sky News whether Iran could reach London with missile strikes, he said: ‘We have no assessment of Iranian plans to strike London.’
Pressed further on whether the country has the capability to strike London, he said: ‘What I’m saying, and trying to reassure people is, that we’ve got no assessment that Iran has any plans to attack.
‘But we have the resources, we have the alliance in place to be able to defend Britain, and we do that with allies, and we do that with Nato.
‘As far as Iran goes, they’re demonstrating a capacity to hit across the Middle East, we see the same tactics and technologies that we see employed by Russia in Ukraine, and this is the hidden hand of Putin in both conflicts.
‘I’m releasing today our latest defence intelligence assessment, which says that Russia was almost certainly providing training, sharing intelligence with Iran ahead of this conflict, including on types of drones, including on electronic warfare, and whilst Putin may want us to be distracted by the Middle East, we’re determined that we won’t be.’
