Miliband jokes at Straw's expense

Mr Miliband is currently in California as part of a trip to the US

Foreign Secretary David Miliband branded his predecessor unchivalrous for once letting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sleep on the floor.

Speaking on a visit to California, he jokingly said Jack Straw was "pathetic" for taking her bed during a 2006 trip.

Recalling a trip with Ms Rice to Afghanistan in February, he said he "heroically slept in a back seat".

On a serious note, he also warned Iran to be transparent about its nuclear programme or face new sanctions.

Mr Miliband's jovial comments referred to Mr Straw's acceptance of Ms Rice's offer to take the bed in her private cabin on an April 2006 trip to Baghdad when he is thought to have been recovering from an illness.

Iran is not the victim of an international vendetta, it's actually the author of its own misdeeds David Miliband

The foreign secretary joked that his colleague, who is now the justice secretary, had been reeling from a cold, but one of Ms Rice's aides noted that Mr Straw had been recovering from bronchitis when he accepted the offer.

"I thought Jack did something terribly unchivalrous, didn't he at one point claim your bed?" the foreign secretary asked Ms Rice during a question-and-answer session with reporters travelling with them on a visit to Silicon Valley.

The US secretary of state said: "I slept in the aisle, it was ok."

Mr Miliband then pointed out that on their last trip together to Afghanistan in February he had slept in a regular seat.

Referring to Mr Straw's choice of sleeping space, he joked: "That is pathetic, pathetic. I heroically slept in the back seats all the way to Kabul."

Meanwhile, the foreign secretary's comments about Iran came ahead of a new report expected to show that Iran is continuing to deny UN experts access to records of its past nuclear activity.

"Iran is not the victim of an international vendetta, it's actually the author of its own misdeeds and they are being exposed by the work that IAEA officials are doing," said the foreign secretary.

Burma aid

Mr Miliband and Ms Rice said Tehran must comply with international demands to halt any work which could produce atomic weapons fuel.

The foreign secretary also made reference to the situation in Burma, where about 78,000 people have died and another 56,000 are missing from Cyclone Nargis which struck on 2 May.

The UN estimates that only a quarter of the 2.5m Burmese affected by the cyclone have received the help they need.

The country's ruling generals have agreed that some UN helicopters can join the aid effort, but British, French and American naval vessels are still standing by off the Irrawaddy Delta, having been refused access to the area.

The foreign secretary told reporters there were no strings attached to international aid.

"This is a humanitarian response being made to a natural disaster that is being turned into a man-made catastrophe.

"We are trying to send aid there for purely humanitarian purposes. There is no ulterior motive," said the foreign secretary.