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The saga to return Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to the UK is nearing its end, said the recently retired head of the Foreign Office (FCDO).
Lord McDonald, permanent deputy secretary of the FCDO until the summer, said that for the first time the UK had been considering paying a historic £ 400 million debt to Iran through humanitarian payments that would not be subject to sanctions for the country.
It has been widely claimed that Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other dual British-Iranian citizens in Iranian prisons are being held hostage until the UK pays off the debt, stemming from arms sales to the Shah of Iran in the mid-1970s. .
McDonald told BBC Radio 4 Today: “We recognize that it is Iranian money and that it has to go back to Iran. A key complication is that Iran is subject to very broad sanctions, so how this money is reimbursed is part of the story. “
When asked if the UK had sought a humanitarian route to repaying the debt, he said that “a great deal of imagination and effort has been invested in this.”
He did not say why this effort had not yet borne fruit, but pointed out that another hearing should be held in April in the dispute over the payment of the debt.
There are some preliminary signs that the United States may be willing to relax sanctions on Iran to access its own funds in foreign bank accounts for use for humanitarian purposes. The United States could extend this principle by offering a sanctions waiver on paying UK debt through a humanitarian route, but the United States is also trying to pressure Iran to start talks on the future of the nuclear deal.
McDonald continued the FCDO line that debt repayment and the release of dual British-Iranian citizens were unrelated. He recognized that the UK could not afford to be seen succumbing to what amounts to a hostage-taking by the state. “We will not allow links to be established in this case,” he said, adding that no precedent could be set.
He said the Zaghari-Ratcliffe saga was coming to an end, but said power was divided in Iran between different centers, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “particularly active and controlling in the Nazanin case.”
He spoke the day after Iranian authorities removed Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ankle tag after completing his five-year sentence, but said he would face a second round of charges on Sunday, March 14.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said he did not know what those charges were, but that they appeared to be related to a case first brought up by the Iranians in November 2017 that said “sometimes Boris Johnson has been blamed and sometimes less “. .
Johnson told a select committee that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Tehran to train journalists. He later told the Commons on November 7, 2017: “My point was that I did not agree with the Iranian view that training journalists was a crime, not that I wanted to give credence to the Iranian accusations that Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been involved in such activity. I accept that my comments could have been clearer in this regard and I am pleased to provide this clarification ”.
If the charges amount to spreading propaganda against the regime, it would be tempting for Iranians, as a way to pressure the UK government, to cite Boris Johnson as evidence.
Ratcliffe said he would protest Monday in front of the Iranian embassy in London.
