Israel’s nuclear arms programme was seen as the major obstacle to achieving a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East, declassified files from 1993 show.

An agreement to introduce such a zone could have curbed Iran’s nuclear ambitions which were then described as being at an “early stage”.

While the UK government supported a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East at this time, officials in the Foreign Office saw the “chief problem” to its implementation being Israel’s failure to sign up the UN’s Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).