The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
UK debt ‘not delaying’ release
UK officials have downplayed the prospect of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe’s imminent release from Iran after state TV suggested Britain would pay its historic £400 million debt to secure her release.
Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of the BritishIranian charity worker, said the family had not been updated but welcomed the signals from Tehran over the long-running dispute as “a good sign”.
The Foreign Office said “legal discussions are ongoing” over the debt despite the claim made on Iranian state TV, citing an anonymous official.
It was said that the UK Government’s position had not changed over the weekend and that Iran had made the claim before without the mother of one
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. being released. Mr Ratcliffe, who has campaigned for the release of his wife after her detention in 2016, said: “It’s probably a good sign that it’s being signalled, just as last week’s sentence was a bad sign.
“But it feels part of the negotiations rather than the end of them.”
Earlier in the day, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the debt “is not actually the thing that is holding us up at the moment”.
The dispute dates back to the 1970s when the thenshah of Iran paid the UK £400m for 1,500 Chieftain tanks.
Britain refused to deliver the tanks to the new Islamic Republic when the shah was toppled in 1979, but kept the cash despite British courts accepting it should be repaid.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We continue to explore options to resolve this 40-year-old case and will not comment further as legal discussions are ongoing.”
Speaking to the BBC yesterday, Mr Raab indicated the debt was not the issue holding up Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release.
He cited elections in Iran as being key, as well as the Iran nuclear deal officially titled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA).