The Indefence group, which condemns Britain’s use of anti-terrorist legislation to freeze Icelandic assets in the UK, received a letter from Caroline Flint, the UK Minister of State for Europe, yesterday, saying that Britain would “strongly support” Iceland’s application for European Union membership.

The Indefence website.

Representatives of the Indefence group delivered the petition “Icelanders are not terrorists” to the UK parliament on March 17, which has been signed by more than 83,000 people. At the occasion, they met with a British parliamentary committee and representative of the UK government, Fréttabladid reports.

Ólafur Elíasson, one of the group’s representatives, explained that in response to their criticism of the use of the anti-terrorist legislation, the UK government representatives had replied by saying that Britain would make up for the damage caused to the Icelandic economy with these measures by helping to ease up the process for Iceland to join the EU.

One of the government representatives who attended the meeting, Andrew Dalgliesh, head of the European Strategy Group at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, even said that Britain would try to make sure that Iceland could join the EU in one year, Elíasson stated.

The Icelandic government parties, the Social Democrats and the Left-Green, who have announced their intention to continue with their coalition after the elections on Saturday, disagree on the EU question—The Social Democrats want to join the EU and the Left-Greens don’t.

Click here to read more about Iceland and the EU and here to read more about the Indefence group’s petition.