Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe talks moving forward, PM says

Talks with Iran to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe are "moving forward" and "going right up to the wire", Boris Johnson has said.

She has been given her UK passport back, nearly six years after she was arrested while visiting family.

The British-Iranian detainee was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, which she denied.

Tulip Siddiq, her MP, told the BBC her family were feeling "more hopeful" that she could return to the UK.

Speaking during a visit to Abu Dhabi, Mr Johnson said negotiations for the release of dual nationals in Tehran had been going on "for a long time".

He said talks "continue to be under way and we're going right up to the wire".

• Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?

• Zaghari-Ratcliffe's UK passport returned, MP says

Ms Siddiq said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, is still in her family home in Tehran, where she has been under house arrest since 2020.

She told BBC Breakfast that she is "technically on a travel ban", despite having been given her passport.

The MP for Hampstead and Kilburn in London said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been "dreaming" about the day she can return to the UK.

She said there was a British negotiating team in Iran, adding: "It's difficult to think why they would be there if there wasn't some leeway in what was happening."

She said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, was "feeling hopeful".

"I also was in touch with Nazanin as well, who definitely sounds a bit more stressed and a bit more nervous than Richard does," she said.

"But at the same time is talking about coming home, being reunited with her husband and her daughter, being back at home in West Hampstead and saying that this is the day that she's been dreaming about for six years now."

A £400m debt relating to a cancelled order for 1,500 Chieftain tanks dating back to the 1970s had been linked to the continued detention of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other UK-Iranian dual nationals held in the country - although the government has said the two issues should not be linked.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told BBC Breakfast the debt was "legitimate" and that the government was "looking for ways to pay" it.

She said securing the release of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other detainees - like Anoosheh Ashoori, a retired civil engineer, and Morad Tahbaz, a businessman and wildlife conservationist - was "an absolute priority".

Morad Tahbaz, who holds American and British citizenship, was arrested during a crackdown on environmental activists

"They have been through an appalling ordeal and we want to secure their release as soon as possible," she said.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has always denied the charges against her, was first jailed for five years in 2016 after being accused of plotting against the regime - spending the last year of her sentence under house arrest at her parents' home.

After that sentence expired she was then sentenced to another year's confinement in April 2021 on charges of "spreading propaganda", which has been served at her parents' house in Tehran.

Her husband Richard Ratcliffe, who lives with their daughter Gabriella in Hampstead, London, has campaigned for her release, including by going on hunger strike in October last year.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's sister-in-law Rebecca Ratcliffe told BBC Breakfast that the family "find it hard to get too excited" because there have been "many ups over the last six years".

She said the present talks seemed "like a very positive step", but feared they "may just be a stunt from the Iranians".

"We've had this before. You know, we've had many ups over the last six years and been told she's been about to be released. So there's an element of false hopes and I think our family, Nazanin, her parents, find it hard to get too excited at the moment," she said.

"Since Sunday, neither Nazanin nor her parents can settle. I think there's a lot of twitching going on in that flat, a sort of high tension and just waiting to see what happens."

For more on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's story you can listen to Radio 4's Nazanin series on BBC Sounds.