British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond will visit Iran this weekend. Photo: Wikipedia.

JNS.org – The United Kingdom is set to reopen its embassy in Iran nearly four years since it was closed.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond is scheduled to visit Iran this weekend with a delegation of business leaders, a senior government source told the BBC. Hammond will become the first British foreign secretary to visit Tehran in more than a decade.

Hammond is scheduled to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani; Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei; and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

The British embassy in Tehran was shuttered in 2011 when Iranian protesters stormed it. While the U.K. did not entirely sever relations with Iran, they were downgraded to the lowest possible level. But since then, ties between the two governments have been slowly warming up, with the nuclear deal signed last month being the impetus for the embassy’s reopening.

Iran will also reopen its embassy in London, an Iranian Foreign Ministry official said Thursday.