British Iranian Ex-Detainees Return Home After A Six-Year Ordeal

Some media outlets affiliated with the IRGC insisted that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, spied for MI6 and plotted against the clerical establishment through creating and training a network of journalist for a "soft overthrow" of the regime.

After the two detainees were allowed to leave Iran, Fars News Agency which is linked to the Revolutionary Guards called Zaghari-Ratcliffe "the $530 million Spy" and said she had been allowed to go home "in return for the unfreezing" of the UK debt. Fars claimed her arrest in 2016 led to the capture of "50 British spies in Iran" and the dismantling of several "spying networks".

The Iranian foreign minister repeated the claim that the guilt of the freed individuals had been proven but said linking the release of the two British-Iranian dual nationals and unfreezing Britain's $530 Debt to Iran is "wrong".

Speaking to reporters in Tehran after the announcement that the two dual citizens held in Iran for several years, Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, were returning home, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said they were freed to go home on "humanitarian grounds'.

"I say candidly that there was no link between the unfreezing of the sum [of $530 million] and the release of individuals who were arrested and tried on espionage and security-related charges. Their crimes were investigated by the judiciary and decisions were made [to imprison them]," he said, adding that Tehran received the money from Britain "several days ago".

Developments in the case happened quickly on Wednesday. As the British prime minister Boris Johnson confirmed that two would leave Iran immediately, they were flown out of Tehran by a plane provided by the Royal Air Force of Oman to Muscat. They left the Omani capital on a military Titan flight headed to Brize Norton Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Oxfordshire late Wednesday evening.

In a statement Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said she met Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi to secure Oman’s diplomatic assistance. "We are grateful to our friends in Oman for their support in securing the return of our nationals," she said.

Truss added that Iran has agreed to release a third British-Iranian citizen, Morad Tahbaz, on furlough to his house in Tehran. Tahbaz, a conservationist and businessman has been in prison in Iran since 2018.

The British foreign secretary also said in her statement that London's historical debt to Iran has been "settled in full compliance with UK and international sanctions and all legal obligations", adding that these funds would be "ring-fenced solely for the purchase of humanitarian goods".

Richard Ratcliffe, Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, in the past eighteen months repeatedly charged that the Iranian government had taken his wife hostage to force the British government to repay 400-million-pounds it received in the 1970s to deliver Chieftain tanks to Iran.

“Iran conducts its diplomatic business through hostage-taking, in part because it is cost-free. British citizens will not be protected from hostage-taking by words and soundbites, but by actions that cause the perpetrators to reassess their calculations and consider the personal costs – for their role in what is a serial organized crime,” Richard Ratcliffe told The Guardian in September 2021.

International organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention have for years said Iran's security forces were targeting Iranian dual citizens and foreign nationals, charging them with cooperating with "hostile' states without revealing any evidence, and sentencing them after trials that violated their right to due process.

Without citing any source for his ‘information,’ Yaminpour told Lotfollah Dezhkam, representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Shiraz province Wednesday that many young people were focused on “Hollywood and European” figures. IRNA that reported his remarks did not say who Yaminpour named in the top ten, nor exactly which age range he was referring to.

Expressing concern that “today's youth spend all their time with the media, and the family is their next priority,” Yaminpour claimed that “30 percent of young people believe that marriage is not for everyone” and that “significant part of these young people are girls.”

Yaminpour said that precisely 89.3 percent of Iranian youth used social media, with 70 percent of those on Instagram. He called for more work to provide appropriate content.

Internet penetration in Iran was in January put at 123 percent by the Communications Regulatory Authority, a high level for the region, although thousands of websites and major social media networks have been blocked by the government to control both political and ‘un-Islamic’ content. Almost everyone uses VPN software to get around the censorship.

The Saudi-based Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plans to invite Yemeni parties including the Houthis for consultations in Riyadh this month, two officials in the region told Reuters on Tuesday.

"It is neither logical, nor fair that the host of the talks is also the sponsor of war and blockade," the Iran-aligned movement said in a statement on the official news agency.

Riyadh leads a military coalition that has been battling the Houthis for seven years in a conflict widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Tehran has been saying in recent months that it wants to improve ties with regional countries, but has suspended talks with Saudi Arabia.

GCC members Oman, where some Houthi officials are based, and Kuwait, which hosted previous peace talks in 2015, would be a more neutral ground for such consultations.

The UN special envoy has been holding talks with Yemeni parties to build a framework for inclusive political negotiations to end the war that has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.

The alliance intervened in March 2015 after the Houthis ousted the internationally recognized government from the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014. The group says it is fighting a corrupt system and foreign aggression.

Reporting by Reuters

Levan Dzhagaryan (Jegaryan), whose official title is "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation" has served in Tehran for over 10 years and speaks an arguably good Persian. His interview with Etemad daily published on Wednesday, March 16, hinged around the war in Ukraine and the Iran’s nuclear negotiations in Vienna.

The ambassador's interview coincided with the publication of remarks by an outspoken Iranian politician and the daughter of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Faezeh Hashemi, who has criticized Tehran for submitting to Russia and China's colonial desires.

Dzhagaryan insisted that "Russia has not attacked Ukraine," adding that "This is a special military operation." He had told Iranian reporters in a news conference last week not to use the word “war” in relation to Ukraine. Several Iranian politicians and hundreds of social media users criticized him at the time for trying to boss around Iranian media.

Faezeh Hashemi also criticized Iranian officials for behaving according to the Russian ambassador's wishes. Also mentioning Russia’s last-minute demands in the Vienna nuclear talks, Hashemi said: "Russia and China see Iran as their colony and agent. For how long we want to surrender to their blackmailing only because we wish to look anti-Western and because our own people do not support us?" she asked. She observed that "In Russia's attack on Ukraine, Iranian officials stood by Russia without condemning the war."

Hashemi criticized Iranian officials for blaming the United States for the invasion rather than questioning Putin's action. "And the Russian ambassador threatens Iranian journalists and tells them what to write." She suggested that the Iranian foreign ministry should have summoned the ambassador and pointed out his mistake.

When he was asked about violating Ukrain's territorial integrity, the Russian ambassador reminded the West's attack on Iraq in 2003 and asked whether the West had sought the Security Council's consent.

Dzhagaryan in his interview claimed that if Russia did not attack Ukraine, that country would have attacked Russia. Meanwhile, when he was told about the United Nations figures on civilian casualties, he said that Russia does not trust the UN and believes that it is not impartial. "We have also criticized UN Chief Guterres. They are the followers of the West," he maintained.

Meanwhile, he claimed that as Vladimir Putin has said, Ukraine is not a real country. It is a country that has been fabricated by Vladimir Lenin.

The ambassador further stressed: "We are not afraid of anyone. We are a nuclear power and we will continue our military operation until we attain our goals.

Speaking about the nuclear issue, the ambassador said Russia cooperates with Iran in three areas related to Tehran’s nuclear activities and the JCPOA, saying the United States has guaranteed that Russia and Iran may cooperate in those areas.

Dzhagaryan reiterated that no one can stop Iran from holding direct talks with the United States. At the same time, he said that the JCPOA should also serve Russia's interests. He also claimed that Russia has always defended Iran before and after the 2015 nuclear agreement. This comes while Russia never vetoed any UN sanction against Iran's nuclear program.

Meanwhile, he said Iran's former nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi has confessed that Iran owes a large amount of money to Russia.

In an interesting part of the interview, the Russian ambassador categorically denied that Russia ever invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s. "We went there to help," he claimed! And about Ukraine, when he was asked if any country with a historical territorial claim can violate the territorial integrity of a UN member state, he said: "It depends!" adding that "As far as Russia is concerned, we had no other solution."

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a diplomatic reception on Wednesday in Tehran that Iran received the payment from the United Kingdom “a few days earlier” and the release of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe and Anoosheh “was a coincidence.”

Iran’s government controlled media has been highlighting the receipt of the money for freeing “spies”.

The two were freed on Wednesday and headed back to Britain after long negotiations, according to Amir-Abdollahian. Both sides acknowledged that a 400-million-pound historic debt owed by the UK to Iran from mid-1970s was paid.

“I announce clearly that there is link between the release of the money and the individuals who had been arrested and tried on spying and security charges and their guilt was proven,” Iran foreign minister said.

There were numerous media reports, including in Iran's state-controlled media in the past six years about the link between Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention and the issue of the British debt to Iran.

In the past 43 years, the Islamic Republic has taken hostage or detained many foreigners and dual national who were exchanged for money or release of Iranians imprisoned in the West for illegal activities.

International human rights organizations say that the practice amounts to hostage taking to gain leverage against other countries.