UK 'Intensifies' Talks on Freeing Zaghari From Iran

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national, “has begun counting down the weeks” before she is able to fly home. (File: Reuters)
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national, “has begun counting down the weeks” before she is able to fly home. (File: Reuters)
TT
20

UK 'Intensifies' Talks on Freeing Zaghari From Iran

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national, “has begun counting down the weeks” before she is able to fly home. (File: Reuters)
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national, “has begun counting down the weeks” before she is able to fly home. (File: Reuters)

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that the UK has “intensified” negotiations with Iran to release Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual citizen, from “arbitrary detention”, adding that they were “pushing very hard” to free her.

She has been arrested since 2016. She was handed a five-year imprisonment sentence for charges of sedition.

After the outbreak of the pandemic, the former employee at Thomson Reuters Foundation was placed under the electronic wristband system.

Britain is "pushing as hard as we can to get the immediate release, not in seven weeks, but as soon as possible, of Nazanin and all of our other dual nationals", Raab told Sky News.

He said Britain is “pushing as hard as it can” to free her, and negotiations with Iran had “intensified” recently.

The British foreign secretary added that the incoming Biden administration in the US offers “additional possibilities” for Zaghari-Ratcliffe to leave Iran.

AFP reported Nazanin’s husband as he welcomed the negotiations between Raab and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif. He noted that Zaghari has created a seven-week countdown calendar on the wall of her bedroom. On the last week of the calendar, she has written “freedom.”

Zaghari was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016 after visiting her family. She was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

In spring, she was put under house arrest at her parents’ house in Tehran.

A second legal procedure was taken against her for spreading propaganda against the regime, but the trial was postponed at the beginning of November.



EU Needs to Decide on Possible Iran Sanctions, Rubio Says

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio looks on upon his arrival at the Quai d'Orsay, France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before a bilateral meeting with his French counterpart in Paris, France April 17, 2025. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio looks on upon his arrival at the Quai d'Orsay, France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before a bilateral meeting with his French counterpart in Paris, France April 17, 2025. (Reuters)
TT
20

EU Needs to Decide on Possible Iran Sanctions, Rubio Says

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio looks on upon his arrival at the Quai d'Orsay, France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before a bilateral meeting with his French counterpart in Paris, France April 17, 2025. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio looks on upon his arrival at the Quai d'Orsay, France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before a bilateral meeting with his French counterpart in Paris, France April 17, 2025. (Reuters)

Europe needs to decide if it is willing to reimpose sanctions on Iran when it becomes clear it is close to developing a nuclear weapon, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday.

"The Europeans have a decision to make, because I believe we should all anticipate that they're about to get a report from the IAEA that says not just Iran is out of compliance, but Iran is dangerously close to a weapon, closer than they've ever been," Rubio said in Paris after meeting with European leaders.

Rubio said the US administration is looking for a peaceful solution with Iran, but will never tolerate the country developing a nuclear weapon.

"It has to be something that not just prevents Iran from having a nuclear weapon now," he said about a possible agreement.

"But in the future as well, not just for ten years with some sort of sunset provision or the like."