Alistair Burt, previously a Foreign Office minister, queries delay to payment of cash that freed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
The UK government has known for many years that if it paid a £400m debt to Iran it was likely to lead to the release of, the former Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt has said in a letter to the foreign affairs select committee.
Burt also said he repeatedly urged the government to pay the £400m, which he said was “not a ransom, but a debt owed”. But, he said, he did know from his discussions with senior Iranian ministers that payment represented a chance to open up a new relationship with Iran and “remove an impediment to the relationship and possibly their release”. that from his dealings with the then Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, he understood that “payment of the debt was fundamental to their release”.
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