Efforts to free UK citizen will be 'long-haul': UK Ex-diplomat

LONDON - 15 November 2017: Britain’s former ambassador to Tehran has warned against expecting a breakthrough in the fight to release Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe when UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visits Iran later this year, saying negotiations will involve “a long haul”, The Guardian reported Tuesday.

Richard Dalton also poured cold water on the idea of giving Zaghari-Ratcliffe the status of diplomatic protection, an idea proposed by her family and supporters as way of placing greater pressure on the Tehran regime.

Johnson is due to discuss the idea of diplomatic protection with Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s British husband, Richard, at a meeting on Wednesday. It will be the first time Johnson has met him since Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a visit to Iran in April 2016 and accused of espionage, a charge she denies.

He said Iran’s revolutionary courts believed they had a proper case, but it was possible for early releases to be granted if it was deemed to be in the higher interest of the Iranian state.

Dalton also poured cold water on the idea of diplomatic protection, saying the proposal is “extremely vague”.

“I do not see its relevance in this case; we claim that as a British citizen, as well as an Iranian citizen, consular protection should apply,” he said. “The Iranians however have a settled view that second nationality is irrelevant when it comes to extraction.”

Johnson has apologized for incorrect comments, which risked lengthening the prison sentence of a British woman incarcerated in Iran.

He has faced calls to resign over mistaken remarks made to MPs, where he claimed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been “teaching journalism” in Tehran when she was arrested 19 months ago – rather than visiting relatives as her family claims.

Iranian state TV seized on the comments as an “unintended confession”, prompting fears that his remarks were being used by the Iranian authorities to justify her continued imprisonment over spying allegations.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a British-Iranian dual citizen, who has been detained in Iran since 3 April 2016.