Nanazin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Iran
Thank God that Nanazin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has now been released. In her press conference she asked the question of why the debt that Britain owed Iran had not been paid earlier and why five Foreign Secretaries did so little. Here was what was written two and three years ago.
Iran
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| Persian Encampment Ovid Curtovitch (b. 1855) Photo Credit: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum [CC BY-NC-ND] |
Britain "is beginning to look weak" over a failure to protect its citizens imprisoned by Iran, the former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned.
The government has failed to demonstrate any consequences for the imprisonment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe nearly two years after the case was formally elevated to a diplomatic dispute between London and Tehran, he said...
Mr Hunt also suggests that sanctions on Iran are no barrier to the repayment of a historical £400 million debt Britain owes to Tehran and that the money could be repaid in medicines or other humanitarian supplies.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe...was arrested in Iran in 2016 and sentenced to five years in prison on charges of trying to topple the regime, which she denies...
"We must also be nimble about the separate dispute with Iran over the debt involving tanks after the toppling of the Shah. When a court has ruled that the money is legally owed to Iran, why have we dithered in sorting it out? Why do we not pay them in medicines instead of cash if we need to comply with sanctions?"
The FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) says that ways to explore repayment are under examination.
(Catherine Philip, The Times, 2020)
Jeremy Hunt, you knew all about the money that is legally owed to Iran ages ago, when you were foreign secretary. You say "we must be nimble" about the debt and "why have we dithered in sorting it out?" You must surely take some responsibility for this. When was the Shah of Iran toppled and our debt incurred? 1979!
*Sir, It is bad enough that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being detained at length in Iran, but worse still that our government and its lawyers could resolve the impasse simply by facing up to its obligations and paying a debt that the International Court of Arbitration has ordered us to pay. It is difficult for our government to demonise Iran when we know we are in the wrong. Time to pay up.
(Hugh Millar, Amersham, Bucks, The Times, 2020)
*The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has for the first time acknowledged he is actively seeking to pay a debt to the Iranian government that could finally help to secure the release of British dual nationals including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Wallace assured lawyers acting for the families that the government was exploring every legal avenue to pay the debt, which for the first time he formally acknowledged the government owes.
...The UK is thought to owe as much as £400m to the Iranian government arising from the non-delivery of Chieftain tanks ordered by the Shah of Iran before his overthrow in 1979.
An international arbitration in 2008 ruled the UK owed the debt...
(Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, 2020)
Iran
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Persian Encampment, Ovid Curtovitch (b.1855) Photo Credit: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum [CC BY-NC-ND] |
If you look under a mullah’s beard, you will find the words “Made in Britain.”
Iranian expressions, still in use, voicing suspicion of the UK’s past and present involvement in the country’s affairs.
The first expression was related by John Simpson on radio 4 Today 9.3.2019.
The second comes from Drinking Arak off an Ayatollah’s Beard by Nicholas Jubber.
* … In the past century the UK occupied the country for five years from 1941-46, and has overthrown Iran's leaders and installed new ones. It backed the Shah's own oppressive regime. And it secretly supplied Iraq's Saddam Hussein with weapons after he invaded Iran in 1980, beginning a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. There's no collective memory in the UK about our actions. There is in Iran.
(Jack Straw, The i, 2019)
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