Johnson says remarks about prisoner ‘could have been clearer’

Boris Johnson has admitted he “could have been clearer” in his comments about British woman Nazanin Zaghariratcliffe and was “sorry” if his remarks were misconstrued.

The Foreign Secretary has faced calls to quit after telling a committee of MPS last week that Ms Zaghari-ratcliffe was training journalists in Iran at the time of her arrest last year, something her employer and her family insist is incorrect.

But in the Commons Mr Johnson said the UK government “has no doubt that she was on holiday” in Iran and that was the sole purpose of her visit.

He said he was concerned at suggestions from Tehran that his remarks last week to the foreign affairs select committee were being used as justification to increase Ms Zaghariratcliffe’s jail term.

Before updating MPS in the Commons, Mr Johnson told his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif there was “no justifiable basis” for further legal action against Ms Zaghari-ratcliffe.

Mr Johnson’s phone conversation with Mr Zarif came after Ms Zaghari-ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year jail sentence for supposed involvement in a coup plot, was summoned before an Iranian court on Saturday to be told she was now facing allegations of “propaganda against the state”. Her family fear that this charge could lead to a further five years’ imprisonment.

The Iranian judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights said Mr Johnson’s comments to the foreign affairs committee contradicted Ms Zaghariratcliffe’s defence that she was in the country for a holiday at the time of her 2016 arrest.

Both her husband, Richard, and her employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, had urged Mr Johnson to correct his comments.

In the Commons, Mr Johnson said: “I’m sorry if any words of mine have been so taken out of context and so misconstrued as to cause any kind of anxiety for the family of Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe, of course I am.”

The Foreign Secretary said he had voiced “concern at the suggestion emanating from one branch of the Iranian judiciary that my remarks to the foreign affairs select committee last week had some bearing on Ms Zaghariratcliffe’s case”.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: “What will it take before the Prime Minister says enough is enough? But if the truth is she can’t,becauseshedoesn’thave the strength or authority to sack him. How about the Foreign Secretary himself shows a bit of personal responsibility and admits that a job like this... is simply not the job for him.”

0 Boris Johnson in the House of Commons yesterday