‘Shameful’ Johnson won’t apologise for Iran remark

BORIS JOHNSON has been criticised by friends of a British woman jailed in Iran for taking 19 months to meet her family, as he tried to undo the damage of erroneous comments he made about her reasons for visiting the country.

The Foreign Secretary was also accused of a “shameful lack of contrition” by a Tory MP after he failed to apologise for comments that put Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe at risk of a longer jail sentence.

Mr Johnson admitted yesterday that his comments about Mrs Zaghari-ratcliffe “could have been clearer” but stopped short of apologising for making them or admitting that what he said was incorrect.

He had come under fire after telling a committee of MPS that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists in Iran, prompting fears that he had played into the hands of her jailers, who have accused her of spying.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a back office role, had in fact been on holiday in Iran when she was detained 19 months ago.

Mr Johnson phoned the Iranian foreign minister yesterday to clarify his comments, and sources said he had been assured three times that no additional charges had been brought as a result of his comments, despite the High Council for Human Rights in Iran claiming his words “shed new light” on why the Briton was in Iran.

Mrs Zaghari-ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year sentence in an Iranian jail, was summoned to an unscheduled court hearing last weekend at which Mr Johnson’s remarks were cited as proof that she had been engaged in “propaganda against the regime”.

In the House of Commons, Mr Johnson refused repeatedly to apologise in full, saying instead he was sorry “if any words of mine have been taken out of context and misconstrued to cause anxiety to Nazanin’s family”.

Mr Johnson will visit Iran by the end of the year and hopes to see Mrs Zaghari-ratcliffe in prison, a spokesman said. He also confirmed he will meet with her husband in the next few weeks. But in a statement the Thomson Reuters Foundation, her employer, was highly critical of Mr Johnson’s remarks and the way he has handled the fallout.

Monique Villa, chief executive, said: “Nazanin has never trained journalists in Iran and we are pleased that he has admitted to the Iranian foreign minister that she was in Iran purely on holiday. It’s time now for the Foreign Secretary to meet Nazanin in jail, as he proposed last week, and to bring her back home. It may also be useful for him to finally meet with Nazanin’s family, and myself, to fully appreciate the situation.

“This would be the first time he would have met us since Nazanin was jailed 19 months ago.”

Anna Soubry, the former Conservative minister, tweeted that Mr Johnson’s comments were “appalling”, adding: “In normal times Boris Johnson would have been sacked long ago.”

Following his failure to apologise, she said: “The lack of contrition is as shameful as the original error. Boris Johnson doesn’t understand magnitude of the job and responsibility he holds.”

She had earlier called on him to focus on his job instead of his leadership ambitions.

19

The number of months that Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe has been jailed in Iran