Theresa May has told Iran’s president of her “serious concern” about the detention of a British charity worker in Tehran as she met the leader in New York on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister urged Hassan Rouhani to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained at Imam Khomeini airport in April 2016.
The British-Iranian mother, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was sentenced to five years in jail after being accused of spying by Tehran’s Islamist regime, a charge she vehemently denies.
Last month she was granted a three-day release from Evin prison but her request for an extension was denied and she was forced to say goodbye to her four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and return to jail.
“The Prime Minister raised our consular cases in Iran, including that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe,” Downing Street said of the talks held on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe timeline
“The Prime Minister expressed her serious concern at Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ongoing detention, and called for her release.”
The talks came hours after Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, met his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif at the UN.
“I pressed for swift resolution on all our dual national consular cases, including Nazanin,” he tweeted. “NOT acceptable to detain innocent people arbitrarily at the cost of enormous human anguish.”
Mr Hunt has pledged to do everything possible to secure Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release after he became Foreign Secretary.
It followed criticism of predecessor Boris Johnson’s handling of attempts to free the mother-of-one.
Mrs May also reiterated the UK’s commitment to the Iran nuclear deal, noting that as long as Iran abided by its obligations under the agreement, Britain would continue to take steps to ensure that Iran receives economic benefits from sanctions relief.
Donald Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 deal that relieved sanctions on Tehran in return to an end to Iran’s military nuclear ambitions.
Earlier on Tuesday, the US president launched a scathing attack on Iran, accusing their leaders of sowing “chaos, death and destruction”.
Mr Trump’s message to the UN was later reinforced in a fiery speech from his national security advisor, John Bolton, who warned Iran there would be “hell to pay” if they “continue to lie, cheat and deceive” or “cross” the US and its allies.
Source » telegraph