UK says 2 detained dual nationals returning to UK from Iran
LONDON (AP) — A plane carrying Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British charity worker detained in Iran for almost six years, flew out of Tehran and headed for home Wednesday, soon after the U.K. government settled a decades-old debt to Iran.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe and another British-Iranian dual national, Anoush Ashoori, who was detained in Tehran in 2017, boarded a plane from Mehrabad International Airport after the deal was struck. A third dual national, Morad Tahbaz, is set to be released from prison on furlough shortly.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on a trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, tweeted that he was pleased the two’s “unfair detention” had ended.
“The UK has worked intensively to secure their release and I am delighted they will be reunited with their families and loved ones,” he wrote.
The breakthrough came after extensive diplomacy that secured the release of the three dual nationals and led to agreement to repay the debt in a way that complies with U.K. and international sanctions. Britain agreed to pay Iran 393.8 million pounds ($515.5 million), which will be ring-fenced so the money can only be used for humanitarian purposes. The British government declined to offer details of the arrangement.
While London has refused to acknowledge a link between the debt and the detention of the dual nationals, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband has been outspoken in arguing that Iran was holding her hostage to force Britain to pay.
The debt has been a sticking point in British-Iranian relations for more than 40 years.
After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the U.K. canceled an agreement with the late Shah of Iran to sell the country more than 1,500 Chieftain tanks. Since the shah’s government had paid in advance, the new Iranian government...
