Iran frees Brits Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Ashoori after debt paid
LONDON >> Two British citizens who had been jailed in Iran for more than five years — a charity worker and a retired civil engineer — were on their way home Wednesday after the U.K. government settled a decades-old debt to Iran.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, and Anoosheh Ashoori, 67, landed in Oman following a two-hour flight from Tehran, and were expected to arrive in Britain late Wednesday.
The British government said a third detainee, Morad Tahbaz, who holds U.S., British and Iranian citizenship, was released from prison on furlough as part of the same deal.
The breakthrough was reached as world leaders try to negotiate the return of both Iran and the U.S. to an international agreement designed to limit Tehran's nuclear enrichment program — talks that have been complicated by the prisoner issue. Negotiators have edged closer to a roadmap for restoring the accord, though recent Russian demands slowed progress.
“Looking forward to a new life,” said Richard Ratcliffe, who has worked tirelessly for his wife's release and planned to greet his wife at a British military base with their 7-year old daughter, who had already picked out the toys she wants to show her mother.
“You can't get back the time that's gone. That's a fact,” Ratcliffe said. “But we live in the future.”
The release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori comes as the U.S., Britain and other countries seek to secure the release of dozens of dual nationals detained by Iran, which doesn't recognize their right to hold citizenship in another country. Family members and human rights activists accuse Iran of arresting the dual nationals on trumped up charges to use them as bargaining chips to squeeze concessions out of Western nations.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told lawmakers that the change of government in Iran last summer had been instrumental in moving the talks forward. The recently elected president, Ebrahim Raisi, is a hard-line protégé of Iran's supreme leader known for his hostility to the West.