The UK Foreign Office said on Tuesday that it was continuing “to explore options as a matter of urgency to resolve” the repayment of a £400 million ($542m) debt owed to Iran.
It said that the UK had always been committed to paying the debt.
On Monday, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and her Iranian equivalent Hossein Amirabdollahian spoke by phone.
Ms Truss hoped Britain would soon be in a position to pay the overdue debt to Iran, Mr Amirabdollahian said.
The UK government has been exploring legal ways to pay the historical debt, as international economic sanctions on Iran have made it difficult.
With talks on the Iran nuclear deal reaching a decisive stage in Vienna, it is possible that Ms Truss wanted to stress the positives of both sides reaching a deal.
The two countries insist that the debt — dating back to the sale of tanks to the Shah of Iran in the mid-1970s — has always been independent of the Vienna talks and the fate of three British dual nationals held in Evin prison, or the detainment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran.
However, supporters of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, and Anoosheh Ashoori, 67, a retired British-Iranian engineer sentenced to jail for a decade on charges of spying for Israel, say that settling the debt is a vital part of any deal to secure their release. Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, went on hunger strike for three weeks last year in protest at her detention.
Mr Amirabdollahian said the tone of the call appeared to have been warmer than for some time, with Iran eager to see the UK do more to help with the Afghan refugee crisis on its borders.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said Ms Truss praised Tehran for housing as many as two million refugees.
“Amirabdollahian positively assessed the relations between the two countries,” the ministry said.
It may have been significant that the Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, was in Tehran on Monday. He has acted as a conciliator on political prisoner issues in the past.
In the UK parliament last month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson again blamed the threat of sanctions for the block on the payment.
The Vienna talks will mean many of sanctions could be lifted, but it has been said that the UK has been responsible for its own sanctions laws since Brexit and so could pay the debt now if it were not tied up in a wider negotiation.
Last week, Tulip Siddiq, the MP representing Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s constituency in London, revealed an agreement collapsed last year that could have triggered the release of detained British citizens in Iran.
Ms Siddiq told the UK parliament that Britain had signed a deal with the regime last summer over the decades-old debt but it broke down, leaving at least four British passport holders stranded in Iran on trumped-up charges.
Ben Wallace, the UK's defence secretary, said that the main stumbling block was the UK had to uphold its obligations over the debt.
“We also have international law obligations around sanctions and that makes how we hand back that money very difficult while Iran is in breach of all sorts of obligations, and indeed engaged in malign activity around the Middle East,” he said.
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
The bio
Favourite book: Peter Rabbit. I used to read it to my three children and still read it myself. If I am feeling down it brings back good memories.
Best thing about your job: Getting to help people. My mum always told me never to pass up an opportunity to do a good deed.
Best part of life in the UAE: The weather. The constant sunshine is amazing and there is always something to do, you have so many options when it comes to how to spend your day.
Favourite holiday destination: Malaysia. I went there for my honeymoon and ended up volunteering to teach local children for a few hours each day. It is such a special place and I plan to retire there one day.
MATCH INFO
Who: UAE v USA
What: first T20 international
When: Friday, 2pm
Where: ICC Academy in Dubai
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
Simran
Director Hansal Mehta
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Soham Shah, Esha Tiwari Pandey
Three stars
